The Winter Wayfarer's Tales
by Livkit
Summary: When she was eight, the trolls locked away her powers. When she was twenty-one, her sister released the binding, and the fate of the world was sealed in an instant. Now she is contracted under Vár, known as the Winter Wayfarer.
1. Frozen Wasteland

**Disclaimer:** Disney owns Frozen. J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.

 **Elaboration:** Almost eleven years ago, a fanfic writer called The Professional originated a story called "Harry Potter: The Lone Traveller", where Harry ended up travelling through the Multiverse. Sadly, events appear to have kept him offline for several years. dunuelos took up the concept and expanded it after making several fruitless attempts to contact The Professional for permission.

Independently of these stories, I came up with the same essential concept, but using Elsa of Frozen. As I explored the idea and potential setups, I asked various people for advice and opinions, and was informed my 'original' story concept had been done already by dunuelos. I contacted him, and he was happy for me to continue with my story. We then collaborated on a meeting between our characters.

 **Thanks To:** KayQy for giving me Elsa's 'Lone Traveller' name.

 **The Winter Wayfarer's Tales.  
Chapter I: Frozen Wasteland**

Elsa had been three and a half when her sister Anna was born; too young to be trusted with holding the baby, but old enough to be lifted up by her father to peek over the crib and see her. In that moment, a connection was forged between the sisters, and for the next five years, they would spend every waking moment together—as much as they were allowed. They were never short of anything to do, for Elsa had been born with power over snow and ice, and as they were children, playtime involving Elsa's powers was soon their favourite thing to do.

Or it was until the night in the Great Hall of Castle Arendelle.

Against their parents' wishes, the girls snuck down to the Great Hall, where Elsa created the usual winter wonderland for Anna. This she had done hundreds of times before, and for a couple of hours, the sisters played in the snow, building a snowman and sock-skating on the iced over floor. As the final treat before insisting on bed, Elsa built a massive snow drift, and they slid down it, Anna flying off Elsa's lap and landing in another smaller snow drift.

"Catch me!"

It was their favourite game—Anna just liked seeing the snowdrifts form under her to catch her, and Elsa was willing to do anything that made Anna happy. Neither realised it, but it was a good form of training for Elsa as well.

"Hold on... gotcha!"

Anna squealed, and began to jump faster, Elsa rotating in position to keep up with Anna's movement. Her sock-clad feet didn't have enough traction on the iced over floor, however, and Elsa stumbled backwards, cracking her head against the floor. She lay on the floor, the roof going in and out of focus, the chandeliers blurring together into one and then back into two again.

"Whoo!"

Elsa bolted upright, nearly blacking out as pain shot through her head. She willed a bolt of power free to catch Anna, but the timing was all wrong. Anna crumpled unconscious to the floor, her red hair splaying out. Elsa moaned as she rolled onto hands and knees, her skin blanching as a wave of nausea rolled over her. She dragged herself over to Anna, focusing on the red blur. As hair went, the only difference between them was the colour... but Elsa had often wished that hers was red, rather than white-blonde.

The red blur shimmered, a vague white blur insinuating itself in. Elsa groaned and collapsed near Anna, her eyes focusing for a split second to see that Anna's hair now sported a white streak from skull to tip. And then blessed blackness came over her.

* * *

One moment there was nothing, and then the next, there was awareness.

Elsa opened her eyes, seeing that her father was carrying her into a clearing full of mossy rocks. By his side, her mother carried Anna. The clearing was warm, perhaps slightly more so than was normal... even so, Elsa still saw her breath coming out as frost.

"Please! Help! It's my daughter!"

Elsa squirmed out of her father's grip, standing next to him. He gave her a glare, and she flinched back, recalling all the admonishments to not play in the Great Hall at night, to be careful and only play under the supervision of either parent... she swallowed hard, watching as the mossy rocks came rolling up before revealing themselves to be trolls.

The trolls parted, allowing one to come up—an elder of some kind.

"Born with the powers or cursed?" the troll elder said.

Elsa looked up at her father, confused—the troll didn't seem to care. If her father noted anything amiss in the tone, he didn't show it.

"Born," Agdar said.

The troll elder nodded, padding over to Idunn and motioning at Anna. Idunn knelt, and the troll placed a hand on Anna's forehead before moving back.

"The younger can be healed," Again, Elsa noted the disinterest in the tone, and also the non-acknowledgement from her parents. She swallowed, fighting to keep her breathing under control. "As to the elder... power such as hers should not be left unchecked. It is naught but danger which comes from wielding power on that scale."

"Do what you must," Agdar said.

Before the troll elder had even finished speaking of Elsa, a younger troll had hurried up with a wooden box. The troll elder took the box once Agdar had granted permission, and as the younger troll melted back into the gathered crowd, the troll elder waved a hand over the box. Liquid rose from the box, shimmering silver, and it darted over to Elsa, weaving around her left hand in figure eights. She tried to pull her hand away, and the liquid formed into a band of metal around her wrist. Metal threads flowed over the back of her hand, darting up each digit and forming a cap around each tip, each cap ending in a long nail more suited to a young woman than a child.

Elsa stilled at once, tilting her head.

The troll elder gestured at Anna, and Idunn knelt once more, allowing the troll to place a hand on Anna's forehead. "Do you wish the younger safe, or merely healed?"

"Safe, of course," Idunn said.

"The memories of the younger will have to be modified, if indeed you wish her safe," the troll elder said. "She must not remember, lest she..."

"My husband has said to do what you must," Idunn said, not letting the troll finish. "We only want our daughters to be safe."

* * *

Friday, July 26th, 1839.

Sven skidded to a halt, Kristoff somersaulting over Sven's antlers.

"Grand Pabbie, I bring news!" he said, his voice rising to a shout. "The binding on the Princess turned Queen has been released!"

The trolls sprung out of their usual rock-like formations, a general hubbub filling the air. Pabbie descended from the dais, looking at Kristoff with hard eyes. Kristoff met his gaze, his eyes no less hard.

"You are certain of this, Kristoff?"

"You said as long as the binding remained, she was controlled," Kristoff said. He pointed out past the boundaries of the Valley of the Living Rock. "Does that look controlled to you!?"

As one, the trolls looked to where Kristoff pointed, silence falling. A winter storm howled outside their magical boundaries, ice spiralling up trees, snow blanketing the ground. The demarcation between the outside world and their valley was stark: dark winter clouds coming to an abrupt stop where clear summer skies began. As the trolls observed the sky, greying clouds began to form above them.

"That's not possible," Kristoff said.

"Oh, I assure you it is very possible," a voice said, cold and feminine.

As Kristoff and the trolls whirled to face the speaker, a thick glaze of ice coated the ground, sealing around feet—and in some cases, hands—that rested on the ground. Kristoff tried to yank his feet up, and began to topple forward. Ice rose up around him, keeping him in the toppling forward pose, but also preventing him from completing the fall.

"I was a child who caused an accident," Elsa said, stepping forth, ice and snow swirling around her hands. "I am sure you saw that when you modified Anna's memories, Pabbie. Yet you allowed me to walk from this place without fixing the damage you had caused."

"There was no damage," Pabbie said. "A threat was contained, no more."

"You profess ignorance of the binding you used?"

"What do you want me to say, Queen?"

Elsa stopped, flinging one hand into the sky, where darker clouds began to gather. She closed her fist, and the distinct crack of rocks shattering echoed from around the valley, the sound sharp like thunder. The sky blacked out as the storm rolled in, and snow began to plummet down. Turning her attention back to Pabbie, Elsa dropped her hands to her sides, taking a deep breath.

"Was it your plan to keep Anna and I separated?"

Pabbie stood still for a few seconds before he nodded. "Your power was and is a threat—not only to us, but to your people as well. There were other options that could've bound your power, though that was the one available. I didn't want to use it, due to its weakness, but nor would I let you leave unbound. I took what steps I could in hopes that the weakness would never come to fruition." He glanced around the snow laden valley. "You see that it was wise, what I did."

"You doomed us all, you fool." Elsa shook her head. "The binding chained my power away, true; however, it also chained my heart away, and the resulting thirteen years of distance and rejection was not enough to break Anna's love for me." She closed her eyes. "When the binding was released, following my coronation... the power raged out of control. It took me until I reached outside your valley to reassert the mastery over it I had as a child."

There was silence, as queen and troll stared at each other.

"I didn't even have time to tell Anna I loved her," Elsa said, bringing her hands up in front of her, staring at them. "The world is a frozen wasteland now; the people turned to ice." Elsa pressed her hands together, her chest rising and falling as she breathed. "Such is the fate you have brought upon your people, Pabbie."

When it was done, Elsa fell to the icy ground, trembling with grief and exhaustion. She didn't seem able to make any coherent thoughts, beyond a keening for her lost sister, and when blackness washed over her, she welcomed it.

* * *

A blue light shimmered in the air, and a man with messy black hair and green eyes appeared. Taking a moment to observe his surroundings, he saw he was in a non-descript room. Two couches sat with a coffee table between them, and a young woman was lying on one. Her white-blonde hair was in utter disarray; her clothes were a simple blue dress and heels. Etched into her skin were lines upon lines of what appeared to be runes. Harry Potter took a seat on the other couch, and tried to tap into his minor aspect of Knowledge as this was a situation unfamiliar to him.

Along with a general sense of what was going on, he also heard his Boss's voice whispering as though the wind was talking...

 _"Elsa is where you were when you first began traveling. She's made a contract with Vár, though she's not aware of having done so. I thought you might like to advise her, for she's at the start of her Travels. Before you explain too much, ask yourself, 'Is she ready for the truth'?"_

Before he could contemplate his Boss's words, the woman opened her eyes. There was a semblance of life there, even if it was dulled to the point of instinctive reaction, and she took up a sitting position, her bearing regal. She noted Harry, folding her hands in her lap. "I am called Elsa. I am Queen of Arendelle, and by extension, Norway," Elsa said politely—in her own way.

"I'm Harry Potter. I am called, in many times and places, the Lone Traveler." Elsa regarded him with dispassion. "Do you believe in magic?" Harry said. At Elsa's nod, he went on. "In my world I belonged to a subset of humanity who could use magic. When I had won the war which waged among my people but lost everything due to the actions of those left, I tried to do a ritual to go back and fix it. Instead, I ended up as a dimensional traveler, helping versions of my world and worlds I could only dream of."

Elsa's visitor cocked his head. "Since we're both here, I'm guessing you have become displaced yourself."

A swirl of frost curved over Elsa's hand before she willed it away. "Perhaps I was the madman in the end," she said. "I was born with cryokinetic power, and I used it often as a child when playing with my younger sister. One night, there was an accident—I froze her head. My parents sought help from trolls, but they were distrustful of humans at best, and outright hated us at worst. Their help came in the form of binding my power. Thirteen years later, Anna released the binding." Elsa swallowed. "The world was a frozen wasteland before I could control my power."

"Everyone died?"

"No. The trolls lived in a valley untouched by winter," Elsa said. "I brought to them the same fate they had brought on everyone else." She paused. "Sometimes I feel guilty and sometimes I feel justified. But still, now I am alone."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I think less madman—or madwoman as the case may be—and more someone who did what you thought was proper under the circumstances. It was your Free Will to act as you did. And since you've not been sent on some eternal punishment, it's likely that the powers that be didn't feel you deserved such. But, I think you're now a Traveler. Like me."

At Elsa's blank look, Harry gave her the simplest explanation of the Multiverse concept that he was capable of, choosing a couple of Potter universes he'd been to as illustrations. In the end, Elsa nodded.

"You have done this before, you said. Do you have advice?"

Harry grinned; glad she'd brought it up and not him. "First? Be yourself. Be the best you that you think you can be—according to what you think is right. You will find that you will end up in places that need a little help or in places where much must be done. But you have to decide what you will do in such circumstances. For me, it's sometimes just a little advice. Sometimes a bit of my power applied at a convenient moment. And sometimes—I have to go as far as I can. Application of your power is according to your will and your own limitations."

Harry paused and smiled. "You're probably going to end up at times in worlds where you have a dimensional alternate. I've found it very handy to have a different name for those times so as not to confuse the people when you don't want to tell your dimensional alternate who you are. For example, I use Gary Seven—a name from a television story that I liked as a child—for an alternate name when I am hiding who I am." He noted Elsa's face was blank once more. "What year was it where you were?"

"1839."

"...right, you didn't have television back then." Harry thought back to a recent Travel; he'd met a girl going to a cinema to take their Star Wars challenge (all seven films, plus Rogue One, and if they stayed awake for the whole thing, the cinema gave them free movies for life). With the help of a little magic, the girl had won the challenge, and had been especially excited about two female characters: Rey, of The Force Awakens, and Jyn Erso, of Rogue One. He shrugged. "You could use Rey Erso."

"Is that also from your television stories?"

Harry shook his head with a smile. "They're from separate universes that I've actually visited, but my universe considered them to be fictional, as do plenty of other universes. Usually people were a fan of one or the other."

"Rey Erso." Elsa smiled a little. "Thank you."

Harry paused. "This is something that you must be aware of: You will find places where you are considered a fictional character. You will find places where exist all of those things that you ever imagined as stories or heard from minstrels or others. It is best to take each place for itself and not what it looks like. I've found versions of myself who were evil and versions of those I considered enemies that were good. You must keep an open mind."

Harry felt the call, and frowned. He felt he hadn't told her much, though My and Ry, or even Vár appeared to feel she had been told what she needed. "It appears I'm being called away now," he said. "You'll find that happens a lot: You'll appear near the place or people where you can make a difference. Once that difference has been made, you'll move on. And often you won't know exactly why you were there. Just remember: You being you can and will make a difference—never fear."

Elsa nodded, watching as Harry disappeared into blue light, phoenix song wafting around. The song was one of encouragement and adventure and Elsa felt life and strength returning to her as she listened.

It resonated within her, evoking a sense of liberation and acceptance, and she tilted her head, trying to recall where she had heard it before. Flurries of ice and snow wreathed around her hands as she listened; the song meant something to her, of that she was certain... but try as she might, she was unable to recall a place or time.

The song faded, and Elsa let it go, rising from the couch. The ice and snow around her hands shot up her arms, surrounding her entire form in seconds. A crack of ice thundered, and Elsa was no longer there.


	2. The Legend of the Drop Bear, Part I

**Disclaimer:** Still own nothing.

 **Do Me A Favour?** I have put a poll up on my profile page, concerning Elsa's next wayfaring. Options are Hogwarts (1970s canonverse, or 1800s Frozenverse) or something else.

 **In Case You Missed It:** This is the second of three prompt stories I wrote, this one being for Frenzy5150. And this was a _real_ pain in the ass to write, as it fought me every step of the way. It wasn't until I turned it into a Winter Wayfarer tale that it began to offer less resistance, and note that I said 'less', not 'no'. Still, I kept on, and I _beat_ it.

 **Other Notes of Import:** There are sections where Norwegian is reeled off for story purposes. Having done a quick survey, it would seem people prefer immediate translations, so...

 **Thanks to:** caffeinatedzayl777, for beta assistance.

 **The Winter Wayfarer's Tales  
Chapter II: The Legend of the Drop Bear, Part I**

 _...therefore will be given to you chances to learn—or re-learn, where appropriate—control over your gifts..._

Circa 10,000 BCE.

In truth, the entirety of the so called mountains was a dissected uplifted plateau. Valleys and gorges had been cut through it via erosion occurring over millions of years, and dense forests of oil bearing eucalyptus trees had sprung up in the valleys, overshadowed by sheer cliffs of sandstone. In one valley, a rock formation in three distinct parts was situated on the north escarpment, reaching heights of almost a thousand metres. It wasn't the only rock formation along this plateau, though it was one of a few that would survive another twelve thousand plus years of erosion.

The silence hanging over the plateau was broken by a flurry of ice and snow swirling on the middle section of the rock formation. This flurry formed the outline of a woman, before the outline solidified into flesh. Taking only a second to assess her situation, Elsa dropped into a crouch to prevent herself from taking the quick route down. Once she felt more assured of her safety, Elsa looked around. The view was incredible, and it seemed that she was at a sufficient height to be able to see the sea before it melded with the sky in the distant horizon.

Peeking over the sides of the formation confirmed that it was a long way to fall on any side. Having been obliged to listen to reports of mountain surveys she had ordered undertaken, Elsa knew it was possible to climb down exposed rock—albeit much harder than climbing up. Recalling what little she remembered, she stood and spent a few minutes assessing the possibility of descent. Elsa suppressed a curse as she concluded climbing down would result in nothing better than her swift death, although the more probable outcome was a slow one.

Ice wreathed around her hands, and Elsa stared at it, willing it to disappear. It dissolved to vapour, and was then replaced with more ice. She paused, and willed the ice away once more, staring at the lines etched upon her skin. The ice returned to wreathe her hands, though Elsa paid it no mind as she followed the etchings, pulling aside clothing as necessary. Not a single inch of skin was left unetched, and Elsa's mind spun in circles as she tried to make sense of it.

No understanding came forth, and Elsa took a deep breath, forcing herself to look around. As before, she saw nothing but dense forest and rocky cliffs. The cliffs were of varying heights, creating sheer drops. It appeared to be unsuitable for human habitation, a thought backed up by the lack of any sign of such that she could understand.

"Creating a temporary method of descent will be sufficient," Elsa said, stepping close to the edge. She tried to remember how she had felt as a child as she pressed her hands together, and once she felt she had succeeded, she pulled them apart, a snowflake combining with other snowflakes to form a snowball that grew to overfill her hands, at which point she dropped it over the edge. A staircase spiralled up from impact, and once Elsa had descended, she made her way through the trees. Finding a small clearing, Elsa slumped against a tree, welcoming the absence of emotional turmoil as her mind blanked.

A thump sounded on the ground; turning her head, Elsa saw some type of bear cub. It stood at perhaps three fifths of her height, and was munching on leaves. A smell of eucalypt wafted over as the bear saw her, waddling toward her. It showed no fear as Elsa reached out a hand, giving it a gentle pat. More thumps sounded, and before Elsa realised what was happening, she was surrounded by a veritable army of these bear cubs. Seeing that some held what had to be offspring, Elsa revised her opinion of cubs to adults.

"Anna ville ha elsket deg," Elsa said, her voice catching as her words reverted to her native Norwegian. The bears looked up at the soft lilt of Elsa's Norwegian. They saw ice and snow wreathing around her hands, and in their simple curiosity, they came closer. "Anna... tilgi meg, vær så snill..." Elsa paid no attention to the ice and snow, continuing to pet the bears as they came within reach. Grief swelled up within her, and she almost lost herself in it, unheeding of how it sent her power wild. "Hva vil du, ved Sif!? Hva må jeg gjøre!?" _Anna would have loved you | Anna, forgive me, please... | What do you want, by Sif!? What do I have to do!?_

Elsa let out a keening wail formed of Anna's name, and flung her arm out. A bolt of ice shot out, shattering an overly large rock. The boom shocked her out of her grief, and she stood, paying no attention to the bears as they scattered. It occurred to her that she should make some monument for Anna, and she looked over at the remnants of the rock, thinking.

"Hvor er jeg?" _Where am I?_

No answer came; not that Elsa had expected one anyway. Walking over to the rock shards, Elsa bit a nail. She could bring the shards together, binding them with ice... perhaps engrave something on a shard and display that with prominence. It would not be the monument Anna deserved, nor the one she desired to make for Anna; however it would be _something_ , and that seemed to Elsa to be right to do. Holding the thought in her mind, she made a sudden, sharp slash, and the rock shards began to whirl about in flurries of ice and snow. They combined to form the whole rock it had been not even ten minutes ago, a coat of ice holding it all together.

At the top of the reconstructed rock was a square shaped shard, and Elsa smiled as she saw the carvings wrought upon it: in the runes of Old Norse was her sister's name, and under that it was repeated again, this time in the more familiar form of 'Anna'. Pressing her hands against the rock, she closed her eyes and thought of her sister, Anna. She had loved her despite being pushed away; Anna had believed in her when Elsa had not deserved it.

"Anna, var du brannen til min is." _Anna, you were the fire to my ice._

Her power thrummed in her hands, and she felt more carvings working into the shard.

"Ild, is, ild, is..." _Fire, ice, fire, ice..._

Her voice was low, the chanting steady, and only when her power died down did Elsa step away. The carvings of Anna's name were now encircled with carvings of flames, and she smiled, satisfied. Low growls broke her reverie, and thinking that something had come to threaten the bears, Elsa turned to take in the danger. The bears were the only animals she saw, and as she watched, she heard the cacophony of growling once more coming from the bears. One raced up a tree, becoming lost in the foliage.

Elsa brought her powers to bear, her hands wreathed in frost as she scanned the trees—

The grounded bears kept growling, not entirely drowning out the growls from above, but making it harder to track—

Her feet stood in a bank of snow—

A growl came from right above her, and Elsa looked up, eyes widening—

Snow spiralled up her body—

The bear growled, and _dropped_ , its mouth opened to expose sharp premolars—

A crack of ice echoed in the valley. Had anyone been there to see, they would've said the bear appeared confused in the seconds before it hit the ground at the required angle to snap its neck. Of course, no one was there. The Winter Wayfarer had moved on, and in her absence, millennia passed...

* * *

Late April, 1999.

"Kristoff," the teacher said, dropping the envelope on his desk. "Please find it within yourself to take an interest in this initiative."

"What do we need a Norwegian pen pal initiative for, anyway?" Kristoff said, even as he picked up the letter, looking it over. Some half unpronounceable address was written on it in an elegant script he'd never hope to match. "My family left that area for a reason."

His teacher sighed. "You've said before you want to get a job in the government, correct?" When Kristoff nodded, she gave him a half threatening look. "Then I recommend you participate in this government sponsored initiative, and perhaps you'll find that it reflects well on you."

"What if it doesn't?"

The teacher looked at him and took a deep breath. "Mr Bjorgman, have you heard of Blaise Pascal?" She received a shake of the head this time, and she nodded. "I expected as much. He once said, 'Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.'"

"...so I should do this on the chance I gain from it?"

"Precisely."

Kristoff flipped the envelope over and tore it open, withdrawing several sheets of notebook paper. The writer had a decent grasp of English—better than his Norwegian, at any rate—but as he looked back to the envelope, he realised that a different person had addressed the envelope. At six pages, with both sides covered, it was the longest letter Kristoff had ever received... and easily the most depressing.

He checked the envelope again: Miss E. Iskall. He assumed that was a paternal aunt or cousin, which would make his pen pal... Anna Iskall.

"Geez," he said under his breath. "She lost her parents, her sister's working two jobs and trying to finish school, and she only signed up for this because then she could say she had a friend? How is anyone supposed to follow that?"

In the end, Kristoff sent a much shorter letter in reply.

 _...some people wonder if I'm Sámi, seeing how my family emigrated from the Sápmi region one hundred and four years ago last December. I suppose I have a genetic claim, seeing as my great-grandparents, grandparents and mother were Sámi. But on the cultural side... you probably know the Sápmi region is a cultural region across four countries, and I figure that I've no real connection to that culture, so how can I claim to be Sámi? It means a lot more than just genes, I think..._

Such were the tentative beginnings of their correspondence.

* * *

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2001.

Given that when 1 B.C ended, 1 A.D. began, Kristoff was sure that the celebration of a new millennium had been a year too early—but in the end, it seemed not to matter. He and his friends were, if he was honest, idiot teenagers, and celebrating the end of one year while welcoming the start of the next was as good an excuse as any for some underage drinking. As such, Kristoff had spent a significant portion of the Christmas holiday period drunk or hungover.

Had he been functional of mind, he would've realised that going to the first day of an internship when hungover was a rather stupid move. When said internship had good chances of becoming an actual job, the stupidity multiplied exponentially. He'd tossed back two cups of coffee in hopes that would alleviate things, though so far all it seemed to have done was make him feel worse.

He stepped into the offices of the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, and looked around, a vague recollection of an email saying the person in charge of him would be meeting him at the door floating in from somewhere.

"Kristoff Bjorgman?"

He looked up, saw what he thought might be his new boss, and threw up.

* * *

His boss looked up from a folder. "Against my better judgement, I'll ignore the underage drinking; you'll be legal next month, and I need you here, not doing community service or some such rubbish."

"...does that mean you're not cancelling my internship?"

She gave him a look. "Mr Bjorgman, could you explain what on earth possessed you to come to work hungover, and ruin a pair of Christian Louboutins by puking all over them?"

There appeared to be no answer that would please his boss, and Kristoff kept his mouth shut.

"Since I'm not reporting you for underage drinking, I don't know if I can fire you for this, and lucky for you, I don't feel inclined to put in the effort to see if such is possible." She waited just long enough for Kristoff's expression to change before speaking again. "Don't rest too easy, Mr Bjorgman; I've got many ways to ensure you learn from this."

Kristoff swallowed hard. "I'm willing to make up for my mistake, Mrs Thompson."

Thompson gave him a searching look, turning to a file cabinet and pulling out a folder, which she slid across to Kristoff. "Against my better judgement, I'll try you out with something not even our permanent employees have managed to resolve. It was brought to our attention by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth after the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813, and since then the most progress we've had has been the creation of diplomatic tension with Norway over inquiries concerning an 'Anna Brannild'. I doubt you'll solve it, but if you do..."

Kristoff thought he understood the unstated implications, and taking the folder, he looked at the reports contained within. The contents of the reports did more to dispel his remaining hangover haze than the morning coffee had done.

"Before you rethink your internship here, Mr Bjorgman," Thompson said, "I'll assure you that drop bears are very real. It's the official position of the Australian government to represent it as a hoax, and every year our department has to deal with a few stupid citizens who have gone trying to find one. If we admitted that drop bears were real, that number would have a significant increase. We want to avoid that."

Kristoff rifled through the reports, before glancing back up at his boss. "You've given me this task. I'm confused about the objectives. What would be success?"

Thompson stared at him, a smile crossing her face. "You're the first person to ask that, Mr Bjorgman. Perhaps you'll make as much progress as has already been made before your internship ends. The primary objective is to find out what connections exist between Anna Brannild, drop bears, and the carved stone near the Three Sisters. Without straining Australian-Norwegian relationships any further. If you have no further questions, you are dismissed."

Kristoff stared at the folder for long seconds before he jumped up, leaving the room—but the folder left with him.

* * *

Late February, 2001.

Anna waited, if with less patience than was ideal, until Elsa had read through her letter, and when Elsa held it out to her with a shrug, she snatched it with unabashed glee, reading it through.

"Elsa, what's an internship?"

"The reason I read your letters first," Elsa said. Her tone was dry, and Anna looked at her.

"I don't get it."

A smile flashed across Elsa's face before she sighed. "An internship is in essence an exchange of services: a student works for an organisation, and the primary benefit to the student is the experience they gain. The student seeks an internship with someone working in the field they are interested in, or the one they will be working in."

"Oh, that makes sense!" Anna bounced on her feet, but she didn't go back to her letter. Elsa smiled, squeezing Anna's hand.

"This pen pal thing is done through the schools and government, so I have never feared that you were given someone inappropriate. The fact that he mentions an internship... I feel you may have been mismatched, if he's old enough to get an internship, which you are not." Elsa bit her nail. "I think I will make some calls later. For now, you may write a letter, which I will read when you are finished writing it."

Anna nodded, dashing off to start her letter.

* * *

Early Middle 2003.

Someone cleared their throat.

Kristoff jerked—Anna's latest letter went down to the floor; his coffee mug went up in the air, and he heard a shriek that sounded far too much like his boss for his comfort. Turning around, he saw Thompson looking down at a spreading stain on her blouse.

"The silk blouse being ruined is perhaps my fault for startling you. When you factor in inflation, you still hold the monetary record with my Louboutins," Thompson said.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" Kristoff said, picking up his letter, folding it up and putting it in his pocket.

"I stopped by because you're being officially transferred out of here; no one expected progress, but also we're not going to pay you to sit around and drink coffee while reading your pen pal's letters," Thompson said.

"I guess I can understand that," Kristoff said.

"I know it makes you sound like you've done nothing. You've done good work for this department, you know?"

"I spent what felt like far too much time going through years of census records to determine she's not Australian herself; I'd hope I've done good work after that. I checked immigration records as well, establishing she'd never come here, and I thought to have Customs alert us if she ever came into Australia... not to mention going through the decades of Custom records."

"...good, I didn't miss anything when I pointed them out. Everyone's in agreement you've done more for the search than anyone else ever has. It's kind of your own fault, really; you mentioned a few weeks ago that more than eighty percent of your work week is spent helping out in other departments. That made people sit up and wonder why departments are requesting you come help out when this department can request your help in the few occasions it needs you. Less time wasted all around."

Kristoff nodded. "When does it take effect?"

"First thing Monday, I'm told. Enjoy your weekend. It's been good to work with you."

"Same. I wish we could have resolved the Anna Brannild issue."

"Yes; that would've been nice," Thompson said. "Let's face it, beyond the occasional drop bear fiasco we need to clean up, nothing significant has ever happened. Anna Brannild is more mythical than real in this office, and we're never going to find her."

"Sorry about the Louboutins. And your blouse."

"Well, if throwing up on a pair of six hundred and fifty dollar shoes taught you to never again come to work drunk or hungover, I suppose it was a worthwhile loss. And I can tell you now; it wasn't all your fault. They were my party shoes, and that morning I couldn't find regular work shoes to wear. Doesn't excuse your actions, but I made a stupid choice that morning myself." She shrugged. "Take off for the weekend, Bjorgman; I'd be very surprised if I needed you again this afternoon."

"Thanks."

It would be the last thing he said to her for more than a year.

* * *

Late Middle 2004.

Nærøyfjord, Norway.

There was one tent in the camping grounds, set a few feet away from a ring of stones. Inside the stone ring were ashes and burned wood, and the woman knelt, thrusting two fingers into the remains.

"The fire was extinguished several hours ago," she said, looking at her watch. "Boiled water to make coffee or some such, I imagine. Any tracks?"

"Hard to say, Ariel," her companion said. He walked around the tent, taking a wide circle as his path. "She's been active in this area... but if I had to guess, she was heading towards the parking lot. The tracks are faint, but those ones seem less so."

"Eric, there are some trails leading from the parking lot. Let's go see which one she took."

Eric shrugged as Ariel hopped up. "If you like, but those trails are public. You know that makes it harder to pick up trails. We found her tent; isn't that enough?"

Ariel laughed, heading back to the parking lot. "I'm sure we'll find her; there are places along the trails where you get stunning views of the fjord. She won't have passed those up. No photographer worth her salt would."

Eric sighed and followed Ariel. Back at the parking lot, Ariel turned around several times, and headed towards one of the trails. Eric stared about in confusion, before he noticed the pale green handkerchief tied to the wooden sign that marked the trail. He hustled down the trail, coming upon Ariel standing as still as possible. She raised a hand, and Eric followed the direction it indicated, seeing a redhead leaning against a tree. She held a camera to her face, and though she seemed to be taking photos, her fingers never moved to depress buttons.

"Miss Brannild, your sister requests you meet her in Oslo," Ariel said.

Anna stayed utterly still. "Do you know why?"

"Her exact words were 'Tell Anna that I shall be in Oslo for the next week, and that she has a letter from her Australian beau', if that has any meaning for you?"

Anna sighed, packing her equipment away. "Figures; I _sucked_ at Carmen San Diego as a kid. Thanks for the message."

* * *

Oslo, Norway.

Having done her part to contact Elsa, Anna wandered through the streets of Oslo. It was good to be back in familiar surrounds, though it would've been nicer if Kristoff was here. Not that Kristoff had ever said anything to indicate interest; it was very much one-sided: her side. Her crush had become more obvious over the last year, and Elsa had relaxed enough to tease her about it.

Anna smiled to herself. It wouldn't be too bad either if Elsa was with her, not least because she wouldn't have to send another pointless text message.

"You are an exceptionally difficult woman to find, Anna."

"I was just thinking about you!" Anna said, spinning around and flinging herself at Elsa. "And _I'm_ difficult to find? Your message said you were in Oslo—nothing to say if it was at the house, or in a hotel or anything, and I've been walking around with nothing to do as a result! And also, I text you all the time, like a good sister should, and I can't remember the last time I got a phone call or even a text back!"

Elsa blushed, and hugged Anna. "I last texted you... six months, one week, four days, seventeen hours and twenty-three minutes ago. I am the world's worst sister."

"Why are you looking for me anyway—besides my letter?" Anna said, looking around the street. "Oh, there's a coffee shop. You've got time, right?"

"Lead on, sister."

The barista dropped her book—Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—as they came in. "Can I get you anything?"

"Hot mint chocolate," Elsa said. "Anna, you still take strawberry-kiwi smoothies, right?" At Anna's nod, Elsa placed sufficient kroner on the counter for the drinks, and headed to a private booth. The sisters looked across at each other as they sat down, the communication between them silent yet predictable.

 _I never liked letting you go off alone to take photos. Are you okay?_

 _I'm seventeen, Elsa. I'm fine, really._

 _Ever since Mother and Father died... I worry._

Anna reached over, placing her hand on Elsa's and squeezing. As the drinks arrived, they separated, thanking the barista. Anna took a long swallow of her smoothie, watching Elsa shred her napkin.

"What is it that you don't want to talk about?" Anna said.

Elsa exhaled, pulling a non-descript manila folder out of her bag. This she placed on the table, sliding it across to Anna, though she kept her hand on it. Anna looked between it and Elsa, keeping her hands wrapped around her smoothie glass.

"I suppose I have to let you go sometime," Elsa said, pulling her hand back with visible effort, occupying her hands with shredding another napkin.

Anna opened the folder. At the front was the standard parental/guardian consent form her school used, and her eyes widened as she read the details.

"...you're letting me go to Australia!?"

Elsa sighed, slurping down most of her drink before responding. "I wish I could protect you forever," she said. "I do not want you to go, but it will be good for you." She half smiled. "Before you leave, I expect a bank transfer for half the cost, as you said you would pay for the trip if I just let you go. Merry Christmas, s stra mi." _Merry Christmas, my sister._

Anna squealed, bouncing happily. "Get me to a computer and I'll do the transfer!" At Elsa's tolerant smile, Anna bounced out of her seat, catching Elsa in a massive hug. So excited was she, that she never noticed that Elsa returned the hug with far less than her usual enthusiasm.

* * *

Saturday, October 30th, 2004.

Having stayed up, and then been too excited and nervous to wait, Anna was the first person at the airport. As agreed by the group, Anna wore a green sweater, and taking up a seat near the airline check-in stations, she looked around for others wearing green sweaters. The next to arrive was one of the school teachers, a Dane by the name of Hans Westergaard.

"...you went on a rant about Australia when this trip was announced," Anna said. "Why the hell would you want to come as a chaperone?"

"Australia has drop bears," Hans said, as if that answered her question. Perhaps, for him, it did.

Anna pulled out her smartphone, doing a quick internet search. The first hit led her to the Australian Museum's website. Drop bears were said to be carnivorous marsupials having some relation to the koala, making their kills by dropping onto their prey. They were never seen near roads or human habitation, making their homes in the densely forested regions of the Great Dividing Range in south-eastern Australia—though some reports claimed appearances in other parts of Australia.

Doing another search, Anna found that south-eastern Australia encompassed Victoria, New South Wales, and a chunk of Queensland that included the capital city, Brisbane. She looked up at Hans.

"...is it a coincidence that these drop bears are located in the exact places this trip is taking us? And from what I'm seeing, the drop bear is an utter hoax designed to fool travellers."

Hans smirked. "They're hiding the truth by parading it in front of us," he said, and Anna glowered at his patronising tone. "Oh, come on, Brannild, what better way to hide something you don't want people to think about much?"

"Not everything is a conspiracy theory, Mr Westergaard." Anna sighed. "I'm really regretting bugging my sister to let me go now..."

* * *

Monday, November 1st, 2004.

"The local time is 6:30 am, on Monday, November 1st," the captain said. "Please listen to our flight attendants and depart in an orderly fashion."

Anna was one of a few people actually awake and functioning, and peering over the seats, she saw that Mr Weselton had the unenviable task of waking Mr Westergaard up. Looking around, she saw Arianna and Frederic Sonne rolling their eyes at each other as Mr Westergaard mumbled something about sleeping some more. Miss Edmunds rolled up her Singaporean newspaper, leaned over, and thwacked Mr Westergaard on the head with it.

Anna giggled to herself; Miss Edmunds was rather cool.

* * *

The bus was emblazoned with the Greyhound logo, and upon boarding, Anna saw that it contained enough seats such that only two people would have to sit together. Arianna and Frederic Sonne had taken that upon themselves, and their daughter, Rapunzel, was as far away from them as she could get and still be on the same bus. Chuckling, she plopped in the seat behind Rapunzel.

"I shouldn't have suggested they come as extra chaperones," Rapunzel said, pulling her blonde hair in front of her face. "They're going to be such an embarrassment."

Once everyone was on board, Mr Weselton commandeered the PA system.

"Due to an unforeseen circumstance, we will be roughing it for the trip at a camping ground," he said. "I'm informed there's camping grounds we can have access to going via Toowoomba."

"What happened!?" Rapunzel said, and she wasn't the only one.

Arianna leaned over, snatching the microphone. "Whatever we do, I can't imagine that your parents or guardians would be pleased, but I'll not be a party to keeping secrets. Mr Westergaard volunteered to handle the tour and accommodation arrangements. The bus and camping grounds is what he arranged—no tents or sleeping bags or anything, which we'll need. I'd like to throw Hans Westergaard back on a plane to Norway, but I've been informed that would involve us all going home."

For once, the students didn't burst into chatter. In the ensuing silence, everyone heard Anna pull out her phone and dial a number.

"Elsa! Are you anywhere near the internet?"

Everyone looked at her, though she ignored them.

Elsa's voice was strange over speakerphone, though still discernible. "...now I am. What is wrong?"

"Westergaard fucked us over; we're staying at camping grounds, but haven't got anything we need."

Faint keyboard clacks were heard in the background, and finally Elsa came back, rattling off an address. "Text me when you arrive there. I'm going to call them and place an expedited order for four ten person tents, and twenty-six sets of a sleeping bag and single mattress. I'll pay for it when you're there, unless Westergaard has the sense to pay for it himself, in which case I'll be less inclined to kill him for costing me nearly fourteen thousand kroner. Tell him I'll be sending him a bill for these calls I'm making."

"I will." The call cut out, and Anna looked up. "She's using contractions; she's _pissed_."

* * *

Anna took the tray the McDonalds worker handed her, and plopped into a seat across from Hans. He glowered at her, but didn't tell her to leave.

"You're not hungry?" she said.

"Your sister's ire is legendary within the school," Hans said. "I've saved myself a lot of trouble by buying the camping supplies instead of them charging her for it. But I don't have much money left, and for what you just spent on one meal, I bet I could get three meals at a supermarket."

Anna nodded, and reached into her pocket, pulling out her purse. She peeled off ten fifty dollar notes and pushed them over the table. "Take it, and two of the tents belong to me. Elsa and I used to go camping... but we stopped, partly because we couldn't be bothered to replace our equipment."

Hans stared at her, standing up and grabbing the money. As he left for the service counters, Anna heard a muttered 'thanks'.

* * *

Hans was the first one out of his seat as the bus parked, and he jabbed a finger at Anna. "Hey, you're so good with photography; you can come with me and take photos of me discovering drop bears!"

"...please do, if you think you can stand him," Frederic said.

"Hey, I heard that!"

"You were meant to," Arianna said, turning to look at Anna. "It would keep him out of our way while we set up our campsite, dear."

"Fine..." Anna said, unzipping her bag and digging around for her camera. "There'd better be hotdogs for dinner, though!"

"We'll get you some, dear."

Once her camera was retrieved, Anna slung it around her neck and followed Hans. He consulted a small 'book' of stapled printouts, and turned to Anna with an expectant expression. Anna lifted her camera, switched to video mode, and began recording.

"My name is Hans Westergaard, of Copenhagen, Denmark," he said, and Anna almost didn't repress a snort at his pompous tone; spoken as ever in a Danish accent. "I have come to Australia to prove to the world that drop bears exist; that they are not merely a hoax perpetrated by Australians seeking to pull one over on dumb tourists." He paused for breath and then started towards the open woodland that sprawled into dense forest. "Drop bears won't be found near human habitation, which is why I came here. There's no real civilisation for some thirty kilometres. The dense forest here should contain them, or so it was reported to me."

"Who was your source, and how do you know you can trust them?" Anna said. "You might have been a dumb tourist to them—or maybe they told you drop bears live here, when they actually live in some other part of Australia."

Hans didn't break his stride as they cleared the tree line, and he picked a trail at random, taking his time answering. "...be quiet, Anna, no one asked you."

If not for the possibility that she might well capture Hans's humiliation on video, Anna would've turned back. She followed without speaking, noting that the sunlight was dimmer here, though not gone completely. As they reached a small clearing, the sunlight dimmed to almost nothing, and Anna glanced up to see the tree branches forming a canopy. An eerie stillness settled upon the forest, and gooseflesh rippled up Anna's arms. What light there was seemed to play shadows where there was nothing, and Anna dropped the camera, letting it hang from her neck.

"Ever seen a koala?" Hans said, his voice loud in the stillness. He stepped on a twig, and it echoed like a gunshot.

Anna was used to sudden noises silencing the world of nature around her—though a silent forest need not be silenced. She processed this in a split instant, drawing to a complete stop. Her voice was scarce more than a whisper. "Nothing comes here. They learned not to."

"Koalas and drop bears might share some common ancestor," Hans said, and his voice almost drowned out the rustling of leaves.

Anna turned her back on Hans as quietly as she could. Nothing stood out as she scanned the area, and behind her, another twig snapped. Suppressing a shriek, she spun back around with more haste and less stealth than she would've liked, and saw a shadow pass over Hans. Her eyes flicked up above him, and this time a shriek tore itself from her throat before she could do anything.

 _Something_ plummeted.

It hit Hans at an awkward angle, and he dropped to his knees, stunned. The creature clambered up on his back, burying sharp premolars in his neck. Hans screamed, and the creature shook itself, a sickening crack of bone resounding as Hans went limp.

"Get away from him!"

The creature snapped to attention, staring at her. It began to waddle over to her, and Anna backed away, teeth chattering. She flung out her hand, and the creature stopped at once, beginning to cough... or so it seemed to Anna. The coughs were deep, paroxysmal even, and as Anna watched, shards of ice exploded from the creature's mouth, dissolving as they hit the forest floor. What she saw next pushed her sanity to its limits: the more ice that left the creature, the more its form seemed to mutate, until the last piece of ice was coughed out and what Anna saw was nothing more than one of Australia's most famous animals: the humble koala.

She fainted.


	3. The Legend of the Drop Bear, Part II

**Disclaimer:** Nothing has changed in the past eight days; I still own nothing.

 **In Case You Missed It:** This part thus finishes Frenzy5150's prompt story prize.

 **Other Notes of Import:** There are sections where Norwegian is reeled off for story purposes. Having done a quick survey, it would seem people prefer immediate translations, so...

 **Poll Results:** Two-thirds wanted Elsa to go to 1970s Hogwarts canonverse. So it was said, and so it shall be done.

 **Thanks to:** caffeinatedzayl777, for beta assistance.

 **The Winter Wayfarer's Tales  
Chapter III: The Legend of the Drop Bear, Part II**

Monday, November 1st, 2004.

"We are beginning the descent to Brisbane Airport," the flight attendant said. "Please remain in your seats until the government officials have departed."

Kristoff ignored the resulting grumbling from the other passengers, comparing the time on his phone to the time he'd received the alert from Customs. Seeing that he was going to be behind, he muttered a curse. He hated playing catch up; it required too much luck to overcome the disadvantage of lost time. When the plane landed, he was already moving up the aisle, and the moment he was off the plane, he broke into a run.

He flashed his government identification to the customs official, pleased to see recognition.

"Should we have detained the girl, sir?"

Kristoff shook his head. "Your message said she was part of a school group; detaining her would've caused more problems than it was worth. Did they hire a coach or something?"

"I believe it was a Greyhound coach; I wasn't able to see where they went." The official tapped a few keys. "Anna Elizabeth Kristen Brannild, aged seventeen years, four months..." She reached under the desk, handing Kristoff a printout. "There're all the details we took down."

With muttered thanks, Kristoff headed to the car rental storefronts. Several minutes later he had a set of car keys (at the cost of throwing government credentials around; his superiors would be _so_ pleased about that), and he headed for the car park. When he came upon the four wheel drive, he let out a whistle.

"I almost regret screwing some poor bastard over," he said to himself. Getting into the car, he keyed the ignition and turned the air conditioning on. The cold air was a relief after the inexorable Queensland heat, and Kristoff turned his mind to the issue of locating Anna Brannild, settling into his car seat. A flurry of ice and snow caught his eye as it appeared above the car bonnet, which solidified into a woman. The woman dropped to the bonnet, rolled off the car on the passenger side, and landed on her feet.

Before Kristoff could do more than wonder what sort of angel arrived in ice and snow, the woman had turned around, looking at him. A look of recognition crossed her face, though he was sure he'd never seen the woman before in his life, and in an instant, she'd opened the door, seating herself. Now up close, Kristoff saw lines of runes etched into her exposed skin.

"What the _fuck_?" He wasn't sure if he meant the etchings, her arrival, the presumptive way she'd entered his car, or something else he hadn't defined yet, and her eyes glittered with cold amusement.

"You are Kristoff Bjorgman," she said. "You may call me Rey; that will be easier for everyone. As distasteful as we might both find this, I would not be here were you not the one I am here to help. What concerns you at present?"

"You're here to help? Don't you think you're a little too late?"

"I assume the question is rhetorical," Rey said, folding her hands in her lap. "If you wish to refuse my help in the present, because I was not sent to help you in the past..."

Kristoff growled; the sound echoing deep in his throat. "Why am I sent an angel _now_?"

"I am a wayfarer, not an angel. It is never incumbent upon anyone to accept the help I offer, though I have learned I go to times and places where my action can help to shape the future. You were the one closest to me when I arrived; if it is not you that I must help, then who?"

"I didn't get your help when my parents were killed; why the fuck would I need it now?" Kristoff reached past her, opening the door. "Get out."

Rey swung herself out of the car. "No matter where I go, you always find some way to be a grumpy bastard." She shook her head, sighing. "I tried; no more is expected of me than that."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I have seen you... or to be more exact: I have seen alternates of you." She slammed the door, walking off.

Kristoff watched her walk off, wrestling with the manners his adoptive mother had drilled into him. He scowled, pounding a fist against the steering wheel, jerking back as the horn beeped. This let him get a glimpse of his face, and his scowl became even blacker as he started up the car, driving off in the direction Rey had taken.

"You're right," he said as the car pulled up alongside her. "I'm a grumpy bastard. But if you've been sent to help me, I might as well accept it. I came here to find an Anna Brannild."

Rey had kept walking, though at his final words, she halted, and without speaking, she got back in the car. After Rey spent several minutes in awkward fumbling with the seatbelt, Kristoff leaned over and got her buckled up.

Kristoff began to follow the exit signs, glancing at her as safety permitted. "You mentioned alternates of me."

"I am a wayfarer," Rey said. "I am not of your world, Kristoff—I go between worlds. If you have heard of the Multiverse, then know that it is real. I have seen it."

"And I exist in the Multiverse?"

"Why should you not?"

"Well, my understanding of the Multiverse is that anything is possible, due to the infinite number of universes contained within it. I guess... why shouldn't it be possible that a person could exist in only one universe? And if they do, why shouldn't it be me?"

"I do not know how to answer," Rey said, looking down at her hands, watching the ice wreathe about them. "You need help in finding Anna Brannild. Why?" The ice swirled together, forming a sixteen inch tall sculpture—a young, beautiful woman with a desperate need in her eyes, her arm outstretched as though warding something off.

Kristoff slammed on the brakes, checking after the fact to see if there were cars behind him. By fortunate chance, the sole car behind him was far away enough that it was of no concern. "What the hell was that!?"

A smile twisted Rey's lips, but it didn't seem a happy one to Kristoff. "My sister will point the way to this world's Anna. Now again: why do you seek her?"

Kristoff got the car moving, joining the flow of cars exiting the airport, trying to put his thoughts in order. "I work for the government, nominally for a division that deals with fauna issues that arise. Have you heard the term 'drop bear'?" Rey looked blank, and Kristoff went on. "According to Aboriginal legend, the drop bear was first seen about twelve thousand years ago, near a rock formation called the Three Sisters."

Rey stiffened. "There were three tall standing columns," she said. Her voice was low, though Kristoff heard every word. "A large stone was somewhere in the vicinity, with the name 'Anna' carved into the face. The carvings were Old Norse runes above Latin letters, with flames surrounding the name. If memory serves, you may have found the skeletal remains of what you call a 'drop bear' near the stone."

"How the hell do you know _that_!? We're almost certain that drop bears were coming into existence around the same time we've dated that carving to, which means twelve thousand years ago!"

Rey sighed, and Kristoff heard a wealth of exasperation in it. "I said I was a wayfarer; as a wayfarer, time and space are irrelevant concepts to me. I was here twelve thousand years ago, and relative to now, I was younger then." She paused, and without warning the colour drained from her face. "Sif, how was I not aware..."

"Not aware of what?"

Rey shook her head. "It is no longer of any relevance. What then does Anna Brannild have to do with drop bears?"

"Well, the stone had her name on it, after a fashion."

Rey's silence said everything about how stupid that was.

* * *

Following the sculpture's directions had brought them to a parking lot near a campsite, and Kristoff was pleased to see a Greyhound coach parked over by the way.

"I think this is it," Kristoff said. "Damn, they _would_ come here. We've closed this camping ground off because we've had reason to think drop bears make their homes here. We didn't want people getting attacked. How are we going to explain that to them?"

"You will tell them," Rey said. He looked over to see Rey waving a hand over the sculpture. It became a compass with attached wrist strap, which she fastened about his wrist. "People cannot be expected to understand, nor make good decisions, unless they are told as much as they can be told—and where it concerns them, nothing should be held back."

"You're not coming with me?"

A sad half smile crossed Rey's face, as her fingers traced along her etchings. "I do not wayfare by my will, but by the will of another. This is my second time in this world, and I knew from the outset that I would not meet Anna in this world."

Something niggled in the back of Kristoff's mind. "Wait, this is your second time?"

"I have been to many worlds, Kristoff; I remember them all. I was in this world twelve thousand years ago; today is my second time."

Kristoff leaned back, grabbing a laptop from his bag. Rey watched him, and after a couple of minutes, he shoved it at her. "Read it."

* * *

 _From Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains, by Gregory Blaxland._

 _On Tuesday, May 11, 1813, Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Mr. William Wentworth, and Lieutenant Lawson, attended by four servants, with five dogs, and four horses laden with provisions, ammunition, and other necessities, left Mr. Blaxland's farm at South Creek, for the purpose of endeavouring to effect a passage over the Blue Mountains, between the Western River, and the River Grose._

Sunday, May 23rd, 1813.

As the expedition party set out for another day's exploration, they were approached by what appeared to be a delegation of the indigenous natives of the land. The servants raised their guns, but at a command from Lawson, they desisted. A communication between the groups was effected, and after a short but hurried discussion, the party left two servants to guard the horses, taking James Burns and Samuel Fairs with them, and so followed the delegation. It was hard travel, but before too long, the party came to a clearing of sorts. Over in the distance, three towering columns of rock stood tall.

In front of them was a much cracked rock, encased in frosty ice, and upon it was a woman. The woman was dressed in a sort of shirt, and something like cut-off trousers, both of which fitted tight to her form. White-blonde hair tumbled down her back in waves. It was all most inappropriate, and they turned their eyes away from her. Averting their eyes brought the ground into view, and encased in a layer of frosty ice was something they did not recognise, though it seemed comparable to a tree dwelling animal they had seen before, an animal called _gula_ by the indigenous people around Sydney Cove.

"Why, it must be boiling," said Samuel, "yet the ice does not melt."

Whatever reply the others might have made was cut off as the woman took notice of them at last. She laughed, and Lawson thought it was a strained, disbelieving laugh.

"Søsteren er brann," she said. "Selvfølgelig, er det eneste fornuftige. Jeg er is; i alle verdener jeg har besøkt, jeg er is. Hva annet er hun men ild?" She laughed again, and this time it struck Lawson as chill and foreboding. "Søster min, Anna brann ild!" _The sister is fire | Of course, it is only reasonable. I am ice; in all the worlds I have visited, I am ice. What else is she but fire? | My sister, Anna fire fire! | My sister, Anna Brannild!_

A crack of ice thundered, and the group looked up even as it thundered. The rock was covered in a drift of snow, though the sky was cloudless and the sun shone bright as ever. There was no sign of the woman whatsoever.

The group departed with haste, and in the return journey, the indigenous delegation communicated to the expedition party that their tribe had a legend handed down through many thousands of years: once the rock had been whole, until the day they had heard a thunderous crack of ice, not unlike what they had just heard. Upon investigation, all they found was the cracked rock, coated in ice and a drift of snow, again not unlike what they had just seen.

They did not know what to make of it, and by unspoken consensus, they did not speak of it again—though Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth all detailed the event in varying detail in their records of the expedition.

* * *

"I have no memory of that," Rey said, her face pale. "And her words... she did not expect to find the carving. I must assume she is an alternate of me; nothing else makes sense..." She pressed a hand to her face, taking a deep breath. "We must part ways here, Kristoff."

"Who are you?"

Rey arched an eyebrow. "I have told you; I am a wayfarer."

"But you're more than that! You say you're not an angel, but what else can you _be_?"

Rey smiled, and though it was fleeting, it was genuine. She twisted her hands about, forming a snowflake out of ice. "In my travels, I have gained more than a few names, though it is not for this world to know them. It is deemed fitting that I should be no legend, no mythical figure in this world. You will speak of me and what you have learned to no one, Kristoff Bjorgman. Do you agree under Vár to be bound in this manner?"

"Uh... yes?"

Pain flared around his right bicep, and Rey tossed him the snowflake.

"Give that to Anna; she may find she needs it."

There was a thunderous crack of ice, and Rey was no longer there. Only a drift of snow.

Kristoff stared at the drift, pulling up his shirt sleeve to look at his bicep. A line of runes encircled the muscle, though where Rey's had been etched into her skin, his appeared to be a tattoo of strong black ink.

"I haven't the alcohol or the coffee to process this shit," he said. He rubbed his eyes, catching sight of the compass as he did so. The arrow didn't move at all, pointing in front of him. Glancing at the sky, Kristoff did a rough calculation, figuring the compass to be pointing west.

"It must still point the way to Anna," he said, getting out of the car. After locking up, he tugged the compass off and shoved it into his pocket. "Let's go talk to our happy campers... and quite possibly ruin their day."

* * *

"Can I help you?"

Almost at once, Kristoff took a dislike to the officious man, not least because of his bushy moustache, but he maintained a calm attitude as he swept his eyes over the group.

"I represent the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy," he said, pulling out his identification. "It's my understanding that your group is on a school trip, and as such didn't know these camping grounds are closed by federal directive."

"Closed? What's going on? Is it unsafe?" A man hurried over, followed by two women, and Kristoff estimated the three to be of his parents' generation.

"Fucking Westergaard," a woman muttered, leaning against the man. Her face morphed into a smiling one as she looked at Kristoff.

"You four are in loco parentis for these students?" Kristoff said.

"We are, yes. I'm Arianna Sonne. The others are my husband Frederic, and teachers Daisy Edmunds, and Duke Weaselton."

"It's Weselton!"

"Kristoff Bjorgman," Kristoff said, stifling a smirk. "You'll need to find other camping grounds, ma'ams, sirs. This area has been closed off because of the high number of missing people. Plus we've had a few strange deaths we haven't found answers for in the forest. I'll be putting in a complaint; the grounds should've been marked as closed."

Arianna sighed. "That presents a problem, Mr Bjorgman. We're a school group from Norway, and all of this was supposed to have been arranged by our fifth chaperone, Hans Westergaard. He didn't really arrange anything, and if not for the quick thinking of one of our students, we wouldn't have even the camping gear. I had _thought_ the trip fees were low, but when I enquired about it... Westergaard said it was all in hand."

"I see." Kristoff frowned. "Where is Mr Westergaard?"

Arianna and Frederic paled.

"He went into the forest with one of the students, Anna Brannild," Daisy said. "Are they safe?"

Kristoff's curse was loud enough to draw the attention of the students, who had been half-watching anyway, and he pulled the compass from his pocket. "Get the bus packed up and ready to leave," he said. "I'll see how much I remember of the bushwalking tours I gave back in school for pocket money. How long ago did they leave?"

"About three quarters of an hour ago," Frederic said, glancing at his wrist. "I will go with you; if they've encountered problems, you shouldn't go alone."

Kristoff clenched his fists, but Frederic was correct, and he gave a sharp nod. "Very well, Mr Sonne; I'd like you to keep in contact with your wife during our search. Miss Edmunds? If Mrs Sonne's call drops out, please wait five minutes, and then call this number." He rattled off a ten digit number, and when Miss Edmunds had put it in her phone, he continued. "I'll pass a message along should I need you to call it immediately."

* * *

Kristoff and Frederic crossed into the forest.

"Are you able to discern their tracks?" Frederic said.

"Let's find out," Kristoff said. He knelt on the ground, glancing at the compass. It pointed in the same direction as the trail, more or less, and after a few more seconds, he stood, walking along the trail.

"You said there've been strange deaths?"

Kristoff shrugged. "Australia's wildlife has a reputation, Mr Sonne—a reputation which isn't entirely undeserved, I must admit. If the wildlife kills someone, it's pretty clear what's to blame. It hasn't been clear with those deaths." He looked down at the trail, noting the overgrowth, as well as the marks of recent travel over it. "I believe they came this way. Let's go."

The men set to walking, and Kristoff was glad for the relative silence that followed; he was well able to tune out Frederic's conversation with his wife. Armed with the compass, Kristoff didn't find the trail hard to navigate, and within fifteen minutes, he saw flashes of colour that didn't belong in the bush. He picked up the pace, hearing Frederic running behind him.

"Are these your people?" Kristoff said. One glance at the man had told him everything he needed to know concerning his fate, and he half hoped these weren't Frederic's people.

"Yeah, they—"

Frederic's words were cut off by the reappearance of his lunch, which Kristoff ignored with a supreme effort. Anna's chest rose and fell, and before Kristoff could kneel beside her, Anna shot up.

"Where is it!?"

Kristoff couldn't find words. The ice sculpture had been a miniature version of Rey's sister, so Rey said, and yet he was certain it'd been a perfect replica of the woman before him. He shook his head to clear it, and spoke with gentle words.

"Where's what, Miss Brannild?"

Anna scrambled to her feet, fumbling with the camera. "I got it on video... it killed Mr Westergaard..."

Kristoff held out his hand, and Anna passed him the camera. He reviewed the footage—it was as bad as Westergaard's corpse indicated.

"Miss Brannild, my name is Kristoff Bjorgman."

"Kristoff Bjorgman?" Anna said, her eyes wide. "You... your great-grandparents, grandparents, and mother, they're Sámi, but you consider yourself Australian, not Sámi, because of the cultural implications and stuff."

After a morning with Rey, Kristoff should've been used to being thrown off-balance by people saying things they couldn't possibly know. He stared at Anna, and she let a hysteria-tinged giggle out, before fumbling in her pocket and pulling out a familiar envelope.

"...but... I thought your name was Anna Iskall."

"I'm Brannild. My older sister's Iskall. Our parents' divorce was complicated..." She shook her head. "Why are you here?"

"I work for the Australian Government," Kristoff said. "The camping ground your school group was planning on using has been closed for several years now; I'll be helping to arrange alternative accommodation for you. In my capacity as a government employee, I'll be temporarily confiscating your camera, since it contains evidence relating to a death. I expect to have it returned to you within forty-eight hours; perhaps even during the talk my superiors will no doubt wish to have with you."

"Okay." Anna's voice was more normal now, and Kristoff gave her a smile. She returned it, a little shaky.

Frederic wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. "Mr Bjorgman, is Anna in trouble?"

"The footage clears her," Kristoff said. "Talking to her will be more to complete the official record." He looked at the camera, and opening the appropriate compartment, he removed the memory card, handing Anna the camera back. "On second thoughts, replacing a memory card is easier than having to replace the entire camera if some government idiot breaks it."

Anna managed a firmer smile. "Can we... can we get out of here, please?"

"Indeed." Kristoff offered her a hand. "Mr Sonne, you can tell your wife we're heading back, but please keep the call active until we're back with your group."

* * *

Everything happened with a speed and efficiency that seemed uncharacteristic of government, and within the hour, Westergaard's body had been taken away, accommodation at a hotel in Brisbane had been arranged for the school group, and they had been sent off in their bus—though not before Kristoff had taken Anna's number in order to arrange a meeting with his superiors.

Anna stared out the window, the scenery passing by without registering. She wasn't sure how to feel, now that she'd run into Kristoff. Common sense and hormones warred within her; Norway's age of consent was sixteen, and she thought maybe the age of consent was similar in Australia, so really, how hard could it be to convince Kristoff to have sex with her? He'd be getting to take her virginity, and if the boys at her school were any indication, that'd be a huge sell in convincing him.

But she wasn't on birth control, and while she'd insist on a condom, condoms could fail, and what was she going to do if she had to explain to her sister that she'd got pregnant? It was far more sensible to refrain from such activity... until she could see a doctor. The logic was sound, and did nothing to quell the feelings in her stomach, or the slight heat between her legs.

Her phone vibrated, and she opened the text.

Kristoff wanted to see her the next day at a cafe just across the street from the hotel. She texted a positive reply, going back to looking out the window.

Thinking of Elsa brought back thoughts of Mr Westergaard, and Anna leaned against the window, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. All she wanted was to go home and have Elsa hold her...

* * *

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004.

An evening of talking to Daisy Edmunds, followed by eight hours of sleep had done Anna a world of good. Conversation around the breakfast table was limited to requests to pass one item or another, and when everyone's plates were empty, Daisy cleared her throat.

"Considering the circumstances, the airline has agreed to change our tickets. We could be on a plane heading home tonight. We've decided to leave it up to the students. Who wants to go home?"

Hands went up, one by one, and at last even the few holdouts raised their hands. Daisy exchanged a look with the other chaperones.

"We'd appreciate it if you wouldn't tell your parents what happened until you're home," Daisy said. "We feel it's better to get home before telling the community at large, not least because being swamped at the airport is the opposite of what we'd like."

Nods went around the table, and the group dispersed.

* * *

Anna entered the cafe, joining Kristoff and an older woman at their table. They'd already ordered, and she ordered a coffee, more to have something solid to hold than because she wanted a drink.

"How are you, Anna?" Kristoff said, sliding a new memory card across the table, along with an envelope.

"I don't know," Anna said, tucking the memory card and envelope into her clutch. She caught a glimpse of Westergaard's writing on the envelope, putting it out of her mind at once. "Coping, I guess. The adults had a talk... we're going home sometime today. They would've stayed if we students wanted to, but none of us did."

Kristoff nodded. "This is my boss, Mrs Thompson. I'll keep this simple, Miss Brannild: after watching the footage, we observed that the drop bear which killed Mr Westergaard attempted to attack you, and inexplicably was reverted to a koala."

Anna wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, saying nothing.

"Going home is probably the best thing for you to do," Mrs Thompson said. "Kristoff says you'll have better support from your sister there. However... we don't think it's an isolated incident. We're willing to wait until you feel ready, and when you do, if you'll return to Australia to see if the incident can be repeated, we are prepared to offer a significant sum."

"I'll keep that in mind," Anna said, not looking up.

Kristoff pulled out the icy snowflake Rey had given him, and slid it across the table. "I was told to give that to you. I hope it makes more sense to you than it did to me."

Anna's hand closed around the snowflake, and then she was bolting from the cafe.

"Well, that could've gone better," Thompson said. "What was that snowflake, Bjorgman?"

"She's going home to her sister," Kristoff said. "She'll get some proper support, probably see a counsellor or something, and if we're lucky, Anna won't dismiss our offer. She'll look us up when she's processed the events." He saw Thompson's expression, and shrugged. "Or maybe we'll never hear from her again. We've done what we could. As for the snowflake, it's a bit of faux ice; some inside joke between Brannild and one of her school mates, perhaps?"

Thompson nodded, and they went to settle their bill.

* * *

Months passed.

Kristoff received no letters from Anna, and sent none himself. Whether true or not, he felt the letters he'd written were trying to talk Anna into accepting the offer, and had decided silence was better than sending any of the attempts. He was busy with work anyhow, and as the days turned into weeks and then into months, Anna faded to the back of his mind.

* * *

Wednesday, April 6th, 2005.

Kristoff was waiting for pizza to be delivered, as well as working on a report to be submitted the next month when he heard the chime of a new Skype contact. The contact name was Anna's, and he accepted it at once, unsurprised when a video call was initiated seconds later. The woman on the other side of the camera wasn't Anna, and Kristoff's jaw dropped. The video quality wasn't perfect—far from it, in fact—but he was sure he was staring at Rey Erso.

"My name is Elsa Iskall," she said, and damned if her voice wasn't exactly the same.

Kristoff opened his mouth, and closed it.

"I am sorry if now is a bad time, Mr Bjorgman. I think Anna has caught a flight to Australia; I have tried the airlines, but they say she is long gone. I know of no other person that she knows in Australia, or even has an address for. Please, has she turned up there?"

Kristoff glanced at the clock. It was almost nine-thirty, when he was expecting his pizza. "I haven't seen her yet, and I'll need to pay for my pizza when it arrives in a few minutes. You talked to airlines; does that mean you have an estimated arrival?"

"I was told the plane landed at eight pm."

Kristoff tried to do the calculations, and was interrupted by a knock on the door. Grabbing his wallet, he went and opened the door.

Anna stood next to a backpack, holding an opened pizza box with one hand, the other shoving a piece into her mouth. "I can't believe I forgot how much food on planes and at airports suck," she said, her words muffled by the pizza.

"Your sister Skyped me," Kristoff said, regretting it at once as Anna eeped and dropped the pizza box. They lunged for it, knocked their heads together, and the pizza ended up topping first on the hallway linoleum.

Anna swallowed a mouthful of pizza, and then another. "Um... that wasn't your dinner, was it?"

"...yes. Yes, it was." Kristoff sighed and stepped back. "Come in, and I'll order more pizza while you talk to your sister. Computer should be obvious." He paused. "She's never been to Australia, has she?"

"She hasn't ever left Norway; she's not interested."

Anna grabbed her backpack and followed Kristoff inside. Seeing the computer at once, she sat down. "...how do you know my password?"

"Your password doesn't deserve the name," Elsa said, and Anna gulped. "Why'd you go to Australia without leaving a note, Anna? Or at least, without leaving a note that I wouldn't find except by random chance!?"

"I thought I left it on the fridge."

"SIF'S PANTIES, ANNA, YOU LEFT IT IN THE DISHWASHER!"

"...oh, I guess I did mean to go there and put my milk glass there."

"You're going to explain. Now."

Anna looked over at Kristoff, watching him clean up the fallen pizza, before looking back at Elsa. "The Australian government offered me a one-time job, and a significant payment for doing it when I was here last year. I'd decided to accept it; I felt I'd be able to handle being in Australia after last year's events."

"Why didn't you tell me? I would've let you go."

"...oh. That seems like it would've been the smart thing to do."

"Anna. I'm _way_ too pissed off right now for this conversation."

Kristoff entered from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his pants in time to see the video call end. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, I've pissed my sister off something horrible." Anna shrugged. "It'll be okay. I'll go home and apologise, and then she'll hover over me for several weeks, and I'll do all her chores as well as mine. She's mad at me, and I guess I knew she would be. But she's not going to disown me or anything. We're too close for that."

She reached into her backpack, pulling out an icy snowflake that Kristoff remembered all too well.

"What's this?"

"I can't tell you. One, I haven't the foggiest of what it is beyond the obvious." Kristoff winced at Anna's look, peeling off his shirt and turning his right side to Anna. "Two, have you heard of Vár?"

"She's the Norse goddess of contracts. What's that got to do with your runic tattoo?"

"I expect to be stopped when telling you this, by the way," Kristoff said. Anna waved a hand at him. "When I came after you last year, I was given some help by a woman. That woman gave me that to give to you."

"That's _so_ informative."

"It's more than I expected to get to give you," Kristoff said. "She got me to agree to not speak of her, with the agreement being bound by Vár."

Anna sighed, leaning back. "Oh, whatever. You've had ages to think of a lie for this situation, and that's so terrible there's got to be some truth to it." She let out a smile. "Have your people figured out how to have me do my thing?"

Kristoff didn't quite know how to explain that no one had thought it important to make such plans when it had seemed that Anna wouldn't come back for anything. He stared at Anna, eyes flicking to the snowflake, Rey's voice sounding in his mind.

 _I was here twelve thousand years ago..._

Pieces began to fit together, and he looked at Anna. "You're not tired or jetlagged, are you?"

"I wasn't able to adjust. I'm going to be awake for hours yet."

"Think you're good to drive?"

"I've taken lessons, though I haven't got a proper license—won't get that until June, when I'm eighteen. I've got a license that says I'm learning, though."

Kristoff disappeared into his room, coming out several minutes later with an overstuffed bag. "Let's go. Good thing I never got around to ordering dinner; we'll get something on the way."

* * *

Thursday, April 7th, 2005.

In modern day, the Three Sisters were considered to be a tourist attraction of Katoomba, located at Echo Point. Anna and Kristoff had alternated driving overnight, and had arrived at Echo Point Road about two am in the morning. Neither was fool enough to attempt the descent into Jamison Valley in the darkness, and had instead stretched out in the back of Kristoff's van for sleeping.

Anna woke up, nestled against Kristoff's chest, and for a moment snuggled into him before her brain caught up. She jerked away, blushing furiously. Her movement woke Kristoff up, but he seemed not to be aware of what had happened—and no way was Anna telling him!

After a quick breakfast of leftover french fries, they made their way down into the valley. It was fortunate that they didn't encounter anyone; Kristoff was sure they were breaking at least one law, possibly more than one, though he couldn't remember any, and Anna was carrying a snowflake that didn't melt.

It didn't take too long before they found the stone, and Anna knelt before it, running her fingers along the carvings.

"How old is this?"

"A variety of methods confirm it as twelve thousand years old."

"WOW!"

Blushing at having shown so much enthusiasm, Anna stepped back from the stone, biting her lip. She seemed to reach a decision, for she hopped up on the stone, sitting cross-legged over the carving. In her hands she held the snowflake. It thrummed, and before she could react, it melted, turning into two bands around her wrists. She closed her eyes, as if hearing a voice in her head, and then... she spoke, her words Norwegian, and her voice a soft lilt that thrummed with power.

"Jeg er brann, det motsatte av isen. Hva har blitt laget, la det være uoppredd. Jeg kaller brannen i mitt vesen å ense min forespørsel: oppsøke det som må snus." _I am fire, the opposite of ice. What has been made, let it be unmade. I call the fire in my being to heed my request: seek out what must be reversed._

Beneath her, flames licked around her sitting form.

"Nord til øst, vest til sør: la meg spre gjennom landet. La meg sette rett det som en gang gikk galt, for lenge siden." _North to east, west to south: let me spread through the country. Let me put right what once went wrong long ago._

The flames spiralled up her form, encasing her in a column of fire, and Kristoff dared not move. He heard her voice speaking, though he knew not her words.

"Så jeg har talt. Så det er tiltenkt. Og så la det bli ferdig, i navnet til prinsessen, Anna av Àrnadalr." _So I have spoken. So it is intended. And so let it be done, in the name of the princess, Anna of Arendelle._

The flames seemed to become a molten mass of light, with Anna at its epicentre... and then the mass of light flowed out from Anna, hitting Kristoff before he could duck. It seemed to have no effect on him, and he stared up at the sky, watching as it disappeared into the far horizon. Within the minute, he was watching the light come rocketing back, flowing into Anna. There was a sizzling hiss as the bands of ice around her wrists evaporated, and then...

The molten light was gone, leaving Anna sitting very still on the stone. Her wrists were burned in a pattern that formed a continuous ring. Kristoff hoped the burns were only first degree, wondering if he should locate a hospital. At last she opened her eyes, staring at Kristoff.

"Did you see that?"

Kristoff nodded.

"It wanted me to embrace the power as my birthright," she said, sliding off the stone. "It told me that a princess shouldn't be denied that which is hers. Perhaps that's true... though when it's I who denies it, then everything changes. It's not something I can remove, however... I was able to lock it away. I've no desire to access it ever again. The price of its use is too high."

"The price?"

Anna stepped closer, and pulled Kristoff into a long, heated kiss. His eyes widened, but he soon relaxed into the kiss, pulling her close. When she broke the kiss, she licked her lips, looking at him.

"Immortality's really not my thing. I want to grow old, have children, grandchildren, and more, if I'm lucky. And I want to do all that with you, Mr Bjorgman."

Kristoff smiled, and leaned down to kiss her again. "I think I could get behind that plan, Miss Brannild."

* * *

Friday, June 21st, 2080.

Else Bjorgman, great-great-granddaughter of Anna and Kristoff Bjorgman, tapped at their door, but received no answer. Unconcerned, she went inside, going to the bed and placing a hand on Kristoff's shoulder, jerking back as she registered the cold skin.

"Grandmother Anna!?" she said, her voice far too loud.

No response came, and she leaned over, placing a hand on Anna's forehead. Anna was burning up, and Else shook Anna harder, to no avail.

A molten wave of lava surged into Else's palm, filling her with fire. She shuddered, her body trying to cope with the influx, and then all at once, it was done, and Anna's forehead was as cold as Kristoff.

She wondered for a moment which of them had died first, before shaking her head. As Kristoff was the elder, laws would consider him to have passed first. Laws didn't matter with those two; the family was well aware of how devoted they were to each other. Whichever one had died first, the other hadn't been long behind.

She walked out of the room, never noticing the flames left behind in her footprints...


	4. Green as Grass

**Disclaimer:** Still own nothing.

 **Extra Note:** Apologies for the absence; I ended up having to move into a new place that wasn't really ready to host people, and it took over three months before I had a room where I could actively use my computer. Writing continues, slowly, but it continues.

 **Happy Birthday To:** The waterfall in a lake. You know who you are.

 **In Case You Missed It:** This chapter takes place right after Elsa's departure in the first scene of Chapter II. This suited my purposes this time—you shouldn't expect future chapters to be so close together chronology wise.

 **Thanks to:** caffeinatedzayl777, for beta assistance.

 **The Winter Wayfarer's Tales  
Chapter IV: Green as Grass.**

July, 1966.

Lord Cicero Greengrass looked up as an elf popped into his study. He checked the grandfather clock before turning to the elf.

"Silky, am I to assume Professor Dumbledore has arrived?"

Silky bobbed her head. "Yes, Master Greengrass. Silky show 'fessy Dumbles to study, and then bring the tea."

When Silky had popped out, Cicero walked over to a portrait. He tapped a sequence of runes on the portrait, causing a silver flash of light. When it had settled, he waved his wand, and drapes of blue fell down to obscure the portrait from view.

* * *

Albus set down his cup of tea, and Lord Greengrass followed suit.

"I may have to discontinue the warding class, despite the disruption in education with the students currently taking it," Albus said. "Those with the credentials and knowledge to teach are gaining more prestige and income than what Hogwarts can offer. However, your name came up in a review of past teachers, and as your family has been closely associated with the class in any case, I felt it courtesy to ask if you would return."

"While I don't dispute your words, I see no reason to return to Hogwarts," Cicero said. "I gave my time to Hogwarts, and I think the torch has been passed to a younger Greengrass."

"But surely you do not intend to give up the position as Head of House, Lord Greengrass?" At Cicero's look, Albus held up his hands in a placating manner. "I mean no offense. The muggles have a concept called the Venn diagram... and your family could be represented by such."

Cicero raised an eyebrow. "We have heard of it, yes—a visual representation of all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets. What of it?"

Albus raised his wand, and three coloured circles appeared, each containing a seemingly random assortment of initials. "The green circle contains members of your family, while the white contains all teachers who have been registered at Hogwarts as members of faculty. And if these circles are merged to form a Venn diagram..." With a wave of his wand, it was done: initials appearing in both sets disappeared, reappearing in the intersection of green and white. "The silver circle should perhaps be a different shape... but it contains those members of the Greengrass family who have held the position of Head of House."

Cicero waved his wand, dismissing the illusion, leaning back in his chair. "No one else has ever brought up the fact that the Head of House Greengrass is the only Greengrass that teaches at Hogwarts. Therefore, I see only two possible conclusions: either you're smarter than everyone else... or just more stupid."

"You are as refreshingly direct as ever, Cicero," Albus said, steepling his fingers. "The fact remains that you are the Head of House Greengrass, and if Hogwarts is to have a Warding teacher for the 1966-1967 school year, it is you or no one."

"Forgive me, Lord Greengrass... but did the Headmaster just say it was 1966?"

Thanks to the ward on the portrait he'd activated before, Cicero was the only person who heard the portrait speak up, and he leaned back in his chair. "Indeed. Why should that matter to me?"

"Why did I ever agree to have a portrait made?"

"Your family was appointed by the Founders to teach the class," Albus said. "Though the Greengrasses have never been a permanent fixture at Hogwarts, as others have come in and taught the class, the Greengrasses are the first to speak against its removal. One assumes your family has a vested interest in that class continuing so that the Head may teach it."

"It matters, Lord Greengrass, because the time is coming when the stories of the Greengrass line become reality," There was a pause as the portrait gathered her thoughts. "You are reluctant to take the job, but you will, provided the headmaster takes an Unbreakable Vow to never speak of the Greengrass family's interests in the Warding class, or why the Head of House Greengrass teaches at Hogwarts. He will agree—students must complete their education, after all."

"Your words worry me, Albus," Cicero said, and he leaned forward. "I feel we can come to an agreement: if you'll swear an Unbreakable Vow that you haven't indicated in any way, nor will you indicate any knowledge of—actual or imagined—the Warding classes Hogwarts offers, the Head of House Greengrass teaching at Hogwarts, or of any member of the Greengrass family, where doing so would suggest our interest is more than a legacy interest from our appointment by the Founders... I'll return to Hogwarts."

Though Albus tried to convince Cicero that such measures were not necessary, Cicero remained implacable, and in the end, Albus swore the Vow as the portrait said would happen.

* * *

Wednesday, September 1st, 1971.

As was tradition, the Hogwarts staff was having lunch together before the Sorting feast that night. As much of the conversation revolved around the students—new and returning both—Cicero was disinclined to take part in it. He answered what few questions were directed at him, albeit with answers that discouraged further enquiry. As Cicero was known to eschew discussion of students over meals, the staff was used to this, and weren't offended.

As lunch concluded, a chill wind blew through the Great Hall, followed by a flurry of ice and snow that swirled along the length of the Ravenclaw table. The staff shot to their feet, wands appearing in hands.

"What's happening?" Minerva said, looking to Albus.

"Truly, Minerva, I have no idea," Albus said.

As the flurry of ice and snow reached the end of the Ravenclaw table, it twisted into the outline of a woman. The flurry descended from the table in a graceful motion, and as it touched the floor, the outline solidified, revealing a young woman wearing a long sleeved shirt of black, a long dress of dark teal with rosemáling of flowers on the chest, and a purple cape. She glanced up, revealing looks eerily similar to those of the Greengrass line.

Cicero Greengrass suppressed a smile; at last, it began.

* * *

Elsa's eyes darted back and forth. She was in a large hall both like and unlike the Throne Hall, with a group of men and women staring at her. To a one, they all seemed to be older than she was, they each wore a variation of an odd robe, and they held a cylindrical piece of wood. Something about the way they held the wood pieces suggested 'weapon' to Elsa, and recalling what Harry had said about different worlds, she suppressed her initial scepticism. What mattered was their belief, not hers.

She backed up against the table—it was one of four that sat parallel at right angles to a smaller fifth table. It seemed safe to assume that this group was in authority here, and those they sat in authority over would sit at one of the four parallel tables.

"Your method of arrival was most unusual."

Elsa looked towards Whitebeard, and gave the barest inclination of her head. She knew that tactic well: make an observation that technically needed no actual response, and in most cases, the person would respond with far more information than they'd planned to give out.

"Well? Answer the Headmaster's question!"

As the heir, it had fallen to Elsa to run the Kingdom of Norway following her parents' deaths, and in the following three years, she had encountered this type of person far too often for her liking. Glancing over at the presumptuous man, she hoisted herself up onto the table, letting her legs swing back and forth.

"Who is the headmaster?"

"You insolent bitch!"

The man whipped up his stick, and Elsa twitched her fingers before the group could react. Ice shattered, and the group jumped—but their eyes were still on Elsa.

Elsa smiled, and if her voice had been cool before, now it was sufficient to freeze nitrogen. "Is anyone else going to give me cause to suspect an attack, or must I repeat that show? I warn you, next time I will disarm all of you."

* * *

At first Cicero didn't understand. The staff's attention was drawn to the DADA professor when he keeled over—his wand hand ended in a stump, sealed over with ice. Fragments of ice somewhat resembling his hand and wand were scattered around his prone body. He glanced over to Elsa as Poppy hurried over to the fallen professor, and noted how she kept an eye on Poppy's wand movements as she tended to the professor.

"He's unconscious... shock, that's not surprising," Poppy said. "Despite the lack of hand, he's in remarkable health otherwise. I'll need to take him to the infirmary. How long will that ice seal hold, miss?"

"Until I wish it removed—or until the power dissipates."

"I'm prepared to deal with the injury for transport. Please remove the seal."

It disappeared, and within seconds, Poppy was levitating her patient out of the hall. Everyone's attention swung back to Elsa, who looked unconcerned. Cicero took a deep breath, steeling himself for the part he had to play. Historically, the Greengrasses were neutral, and as such, theoretically unbiased about those around them. The idea that Albus Dumbledore would break a cease-fire seconds after it was proposed had never been easy for Cicero to swallow, however, and he desperately hoped that part of the story was false.

"I propose a cease-fire," he said, making a show of holstering his wand. "We will put our wands away, and then we will talk. A proper exchange of information, if you will."

Cicero noted how her eyes flicked from Albus to him, before they flicked back, and he swore under his breath. Eye contact was all one needed for wandless Legilimency, and from meeting his gaze, she had figured out the necessity of that contact. The story was true, and all he could do was stand and watch.

Elsa slipped off the table, one hand reaching back to steady herself. Her gaze never left Albus, and when she spoke, her words was calm, with turbulent depths. "I know not what you do, wizard... but stay out of my head, lest you reap the snowstorm."

As she blinked her eyes, Albus stumbled back, crying out in pain as frost coated his face and beard.

"Silence," Cicero said, before the staff could raise any protest. "The law is quite clear: unless consent is given, Legilimency is illegal. I heard no consent from our visitor... but clearly, she defended herself, which legally, she's entitled to do. Minerva, I believe you should assist Albus to the Infirmary, while I shall assist our visitor, seeing as no one else seems inclined to take on that duty."

"You look to have it under control, Cicero," Horace Slughorn said. "Besides, as Heads of House, Minerva, Filius, Pomona and I can't leave the school."

"I agree with Horace," Rolanda Hooch said. "She looks like a Greengrass... so best you assist her."

The other professors nodded their heads, or murmured agreement, so Cicero nodded to them, turning to Elsa. "My lady, I am Lord Greengrass, and with your permission, I would escort you to a place where you may make arrangements for your needs as appropriate."

Elsa considered each professor in turn, and shrugged. She was used to people wanting her gone. "I accept your offer of assistance."

Cicero nodded. "I'll be back for the feast tonight, Minerva. Come, my lady; we must leave the grounds before we can Apparate to our destination."

The professors were polite enough to hold relieved sighs until the doors closed behind Cicero and Elsa.

* * *

As they cleared the Hogwarts wards, Elsa turned to Cicero. "Why are you concerning yourself with a virtual stranger, Lord Greengrass?"

Cicero sighed. "I'd prefer not to have that discussion out in the open, my lady, both to keep the family secrets, and also to have some proof on hand of my words."

It took Elsa only a second to understand that, and she nodded. "Very well; let us proceed to more private surrounds, then."

Cicero looked at her. "Are you familiar with Apparation?"

"Not at all. From your words, I took it to be a form of travel, and that is sufficient for now."

Cicero nodded, stepping close to her to take her arm. Elsa felt a sense of immense compression, and then they were standing in a walled courtyard with a trash can. Cicero stepped over to the wall, tapping a sequence of bricks before stepping back to watch Elsa. The bricks twisted about, forming the entrance to Diagon Alley, and if Elsa reacted to the sight, Cicero didn't see it.

"Welcome, my lady, to Diagon Alley," he said.

Diagon Alley had no more than a handful of people in it, and for the most part they were all minding their own business, so Cicero and Elsa were able to make their way to a snowy white building that towered over the rest of the shops. The doors were a burnished bronze, and standing beside the doors was a creature wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold. The creature was as unlike a troll as Elsa could have imagined, and when it looked at her, she noted the widening of its eyes. Cicero walked past the creature without acknowledgement, not noticing that Elsa had stayed behind.

She noted the creature was armed, though only because she knew to look for it—had she not armed her own guards, telling them to be discreet about being armed?

"Would I be right in assuming that being ignored is usual for you?" she said. "If such a thing is something you can tell me."

"You're not what I expected, Wayfarer."

Elsa allowed a smile. "I am but newly arrived here," she said, "and though I noted your recognition of my person, I regret that I know only what you are not."

"We are goblins, Wayfarer, and we run Gringotts Bank," he said. "We are used to the humans ignoring us—what else should be expected from them but human behaviour?" He gave her a searching look.

"Quite," Elsa said. She reached into an inner lining of her sleeve, and withdrew two ten speciedaler notes. "Though I understand your message, honoured guard, I know not how goblins show their appreciation. I must show thanks as I used to." She extended the notes to the guard, who took them in stunned silence.

When it was clear the goblin wasn't going to say anything more, Elsa inclined her head in respectful acknowledgement, and passed through the bronze doors. As she passed through the silver doors, she found herself in a vast hall of marble, and before she had gone more than half a dozen steps, a goblin approached her.

"Wayfarer, Ragnok of the Gott clan—our leader—wishes to speak with you before your business with Lord Greengrass is conducted. Do you have time?"

"If your leader would speak with me, I will make time," Elsa said.

* * *

Elsa was shown into a room that was unadorned, and unfurnished except for a desk and two visitor's chairs. Her escort took a stance next to the door, gesturing her forward as the goblin sitting behind the desk stood up.

"Greetings," he said. "I am Ragnok of the Gott Clan, Director of Gringotts Bank, Leader of the Goblins."

"Greetings, Director Ragnok," Elsa said. "I am Elsa of Arendelle, Queen of Norway, also called Rey Erso."

Ragnok looked at her, and when she said no more, he turned to her goblin escort, and gave several orders. The language he spoke in was not one with which Elsa was familiar, and when Ragnok finished, her escort gave a sharp nod and departed the meeting room.

"You are known to us," Ragnok said, "though I wonder why you don't give the names we know you by."

Elsa sat down, folding her hands in her lap. "Whatever it was that I did to become known to your people, Director, is an event that still remains in my future. I know not what other names I should have, and though your guard called me Wayfarer, it means less than nothing to me. I would appreciate any explanation you may be able to give."

Ragnok gave her a searching look, and coming to a decision, he sat at the desk, tapping twice on it. A wave of magic thrummed through the air, and silver light suffused the room's interior surfaces before fading.

"Extra assurances of privacy," he said by way of explanation. "Your words present a quandary: if I tell you meet my father when he's being threatened by a wizard, will you then wait until you see him being threatened, when if I hadn't told you, you would've approached him before the wizard made his threats?"

Elsa turned the quandary over in her mind. "Though these events are yet to happen for me, they are in your past," she said at last. "I cannot see that telling me or not can change what has already happened, even if it is yet to happen from my perspective."

"...a well-reasoned argument," Ragnok said. "And I must consider—especially given the main errand I've sent Rockfist on—that now's when you're meant to learn this. The first should need little explanation: the guard called you Wayfarer, from the Winter Wayfarer—which is the name you have in legend. The legend gives a brief account of your story, but does not give your name. Were I you, I'd expect the legend to be common knowledge wherever you go."

"Do you have a copy of this legend?"

"Rockfist is bringing a copy of the legend back." Ragnok leaned back in his chair. "Now we come to your goblin name: Marta Pruinaen, Bringer of the Frost. If memory serves, we bestow it on you in your next encounter with us. I ask of you, Elsa of Arendelle, to not use that name before my people bestow it on you with the proper forms."

"You have my word, Director."

Any further conversation was halted by a knock on the door. Ragnok again tapped twice on the desk, and the interior surfaces sparkled with silver light. When the light had faded, he bade Rockfist enter. Rockfist carried a wooden box, with a book balanced on the box, and he resumed his original position once he had handed these to Ragnok, who handed the book— _Legends & Myths of the Wizarding World, by Gertrude Yolanda_—to Elsa.

There was a bookmark present, and she flipped to the marked page.

 _ **The Winter Wayfarer:**_ _A young queen who was betrayed... with her sister dead, she entered a contract, the terms etched into her skin... rose as the Winter Wayfarer, beautiful, powerful, dangerous... journeying through time and reality... her calling card, a flurry of ice and snow... the cold never bothered her anyway._

 _ **Source:**_ _R. Anderson, Norwegian Myths of Royalty._

 _Some of my more astute readers will note the similarity to the Lone Traveller, and I suspect they are related in purpose. I've included her more for completeness, owing to the fact that while she has been seen within the Wizarding World, from all accounts she is not tied to our world as the Lone Traveller is._

Elsa closed the book, setting it to the side as Ragnok pushed the wooden box over. At a gesture from Ragnok, she opened the box. Light sparkled off a stone, which was embedded into a bracelet of silver-white metal, and upon closer inspection, it seemed the stone was in fact two gems that had been fused together before being set into the bracelet. She brushed a finger over the blue gem, and light flashed through the room. When it cleared, the bracelet was around her right wrist.

Elsa stared at the bracelet before looking up at Ragnok. "I feel no binding on my power, Director Ragnok," she said, her breath frosting over, "and for that reason only, I will allow you to explain before I make any decisions."

Rockfist hefted an axe, unsure if Elsa was a threat to the Director or not, and as the click of fingers sounded through the room, he found himself pinned against the wall by shackles of ice. True to his nature, Ragnok betrayed nothing, though he cursed himself for forgetting to inform her of all particulars.

"The bracelet is goblin-forged mythril," Ragnok said, "and was crafted about two centuries ago. As Director, I was following the instructions of Fruipit: when you came to our bank with Lord Greengrass, the Director was to pass their gift onto you. I've no idea what it does, except to say it aids you."

"How come you by that knowledge?"

"The Greengrass contract with Gringotts has an explicit clause allowing Fruipit to remove anything from their vaults in the pursuit of their craft, as long as it was placed in there by Marta Pruinaen. It is how Fruipit obtained the gems."

Elsa exhaled a stream of frost that dissipated, and as she did, the shackles melted. Rockfist smoothed his uniform out, and slipped out the door.

"He is seeing if Lord Greengrass is ready to meet with you," Ragnok said. "Our business, at least until Lord Greengrass makes any further decisions, is complete. I'll give you some time to compose yourself, Marta. I apologise for any alarm I caused."

"Thank you."

Ragnok disappeared through another door, and Elsa leaned back, closing her eyes. What Ragnok had shared with her was almost incomprehensible to Elsa, and yet it seemed to confirm what the Lone Traveller—Harry Potter—had told her at the beginning of her wayfaring. Thinking of Harry reminded her of what he had told her about his origins, and she wondered if this was one of his worlds. Perhaps she would get to find out: he'd said she'd move on when she had done what had to be done, and clearly, that point had not yet come.

* * *

Elsa had not long composed herself when a knock sounded at the door, and before Elsa could gather wits enough to respond, the door opened to admit Ragnok, with Cicero behind him. Neither appeared happy, though it didn't appear to be directed at Elsa.

"I will prepare the service you have asked for," Ragnok said. "It would be best for you to explain what you are offering while I do so."

Cicero dropped into the other chair, and Elsa waited in silence as his face cleared of emotion.

"My lady," Cicero said, "you'll have noted that I haven't asked your name. Think me rude if you must, but know that I was aware that you would arrive today because of a story from the earliest ancestor that House Greengrass can trace—a wayfarer called Elsa Greengrass. With this story came three orders: we were to take you in as a magical daughter of Greengrass, teach you everything House Greengrass knows about warding, and we were not to know you by any name."

As Cicero spoke, Elsa's face drained of colour, and when he was done, she dropped her head into her hands. Muffled Norwegian invective followed, and Cicero sat back to wait it out, an amused smirk crossing his face.

"My lady," Cicero said, when Elsa seemed to have run out of steam, "though I make the offer, you aren't required to accept."

"I will accept," Elsa said, and she half laughed at the expressions Cicero and Ragnok wore. "It is as you said, Director: now is when it is meant to happen."

"Quite," Ragnok said. "If there is nothing more to discuss here, let us proceed with the ritual Lord Greengrass requested. You have the blood, Lord Greengrass?"

Lord Greengrass pulled a vial of blood from an inner pocket, sliding it across the table. Ragnok accepted the vial, and looked at Elsa.

"It might be best if you lean back and close your eyes during this ritual," Ragnok said. "You will sense the Greengrass family magic when it welcomes you; do not be alarmed."

Elsa shrugged, and did as instructed, imagining ritual words and ritual components all needing to be observed in the proper manner, all taking at least an hour, if not more. Ragnok spoke in words too low for her to catch, and almost at once, magic began to thrum as it filled the room. The smell of grass came to her as fresh cuttings on a warm day, and she suppressed a grin. It was accompanied by an icy sensation that slid along her skin, and then the magic enveloped her, fading within seconds.

When no reaction came from either Ragnok or Cicero, Elsa opened her eyes.

"Her looks are unchanged; did the ritual not work?"

"While adoption is known to change the looks of the adopted child, regardless of the ritual used," Ragnok said, "I remind you that the ritual you chose doesn't obviate the original parents. It may be that she is a Greengrass by another line, and so her looks remain unchanged." He reached into a drawer, pulling out a knife and parchment. "It is simple enough test; her blood will prove her lineage, and we need only see that she is a daughter of Greengrass to accept the adoption ritual was successful."

Elsa extended her hand, remaining expressionless as Ragnok sliced her finger open. Her blood dripped onto the parchment, and as the wound healed, writing began to appear, scrawling up the parchment. When the writing halted, Ragnok picked up the parchment, looking at Elsa.

"You would prefer your original family be known only to you?"

At Elsa's nod, Ragnok tore a section out of the parchment, throwing it into the fire before laying the parchment on the desk.

"As you see, Lord Greengrass, she has been accepted as your granddaughter. This was deliberate on your part?"

"It was, yes."

The parchment burned up in flames, and Ragnok nodded. "I believe that concludes the requested business, Lord Greengrass. The charge for which will be deducted from your vaults, unless..."

Cicero shook his head, and stood.

"If we would speak with you again, daughter of Greengrass, we will send a missive."

Elsa recognised the dismissal, and so departed Gringotts Bank with Cicero.

* * *

Thursday, September 2nd, 1971.

"Missy Greengrass be getting up," a voice said, and Elsa opened her eyes. "Lady Illiana says breakfast is in dining room. Silky has provided some clothing for Missy Greengrass. Silky be showing Missy Greengrass how to get cleans."

The little elf had attached herself to Elsa the previous day, and if not for Silky, Elsa would've been lost. Silky explained everything, almost as if she expected Elsa to know nothing. Elsa might have asked if Silky's ancestors had passed down instructions, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

As Elsa entered the dining room, she saw Illiana Greengrass waiting on her, and she nodded in deference to the older woman. Where Cicero was going grey, Illiana boasted not one single grey hair, and was clearly still as straight and tall as she had been in her youth. Her expression was kind and welcoming, though Elsa figured if a Greengrass was under threat, Illiana would show a less pleasant side.

"We'll have to go shopping later," Illiana said, returning Elsa's nod. "The muggle world, I think—you look uncomfortable in that robe."

Elsa made a non-committal noise, sitting down, and taking some eggs and toast.

"That will wait, however, until the afternoon. Cicero wanted to have an assessment of your Warding skill so we know where to start."

"It would be best if you assume I know nothing," Elsa said. "I had never heard of Warding before yesterday."

Illiana raised an eyebrow, setting her cutlery down.

"Well, I don't need to give you a formal test," she said. "I can easily determine your knowledge within ten questions."

She launched into the questions, but when Elsa had answered with polite confusion a tenth time, Illiana looked up at the ceiling, as if asking for patience, and summoned a quill and parchment before launching into another series of questions. Illiana's tea grew cold, and she didn't even notice, scribbling on the parchment the few times Elsa did manage to answer a question. When she stopped speaking, she stared at the parchment, throwing it on the table.

"You were educated, that much is clear," Illiana said. "Though I think you could stand a little more learning where politics and negotiation are concerned, I believe you would be able to stand on your own, and come to an agreement that favours your side. The rest of your education... I estimate you are at least a hundred years behind current Muggle standards. Maybe more."

Illiana summoned more parchment. "You need a Muggle tutor; I'll write to Cicero, and he can enquire amongst the students for a Muggle parent to tutor you—because of their children, they know about our world, you understand."

Elsa sighed, but she was well used to learning how to run her kingdom better, and this could be said to be more of the same in a way, so she made no protest.

* * *

Some months later...

 _Lord Greengrass, Lady Greengrass,_

 _I regret that I could not say farewell in person, and I hope that I may finish this missive before I am called away. I remain most grateful for the education you provided me, and in that vein, please convey to Miss Puckle my thanks for her tutoring, and my best wishes for her wedding._

"I do wish her well," Elsa said to herself. "Even if she _is_ marrying a man she just met." She thought about what she needed to say, and once decided, resumed her letter.

 _Much became clear to me that day at Gringotts, when I was blood adopted. As I have not the time for a lengthy explanation, seek out the portrait of Elsa Greengrass, who will explain all._

 _But know this, Cicero and Illiana Greengrass._

 _I am a closed loop: both Heiress and Lady, the beginning and end of House Greengrass._

 _And while I will not abrogate either status, I recognise that I owe much to House Greengrass, and I would not see it end. Therefore, as Lady Heiress of Greengrass, I have decreed: in my absence, the Heiress of Greengrass will be Daphne Laurel Greengrass, first natural-born daughter of your grandson's line._

Elsa read over the letter again, and satisfied it said what it needed to, folded it in half, and inscribed four runes on it: _ehwaz_ , _laguz_ , _sowilo_ , _ansuz_.

"Silky!"

"Missy Greengrass?"

She handed the letter over. "See that Cicero and Illiana receive this letter when they return. I would appreciate it if you were to keep the manner of my leaving secret."

"Silky be doing, Missy Greengrass."

Ice and snow wreathed around Elsa's form, and Silky's eyes widened as she understood: the Winter Wayfarer had consented to become a Greengrass. The crack of ice that accompanied Elsa's departure shattered the Manor windows, and Silky set to work repairing them before Cicero and Illiana returned from dinner.

The last window was repaired just as Cicero and Illiana Apparated in, and Silky clicked her fingers, the letter appearing in her hand.

"Missy Greengrass be telling Silky to give you both her letter."

When they had finished the letter, Illiana looked between it and her husband. "Does she mean to say that she and Elsa Greengrass are one and the same?"

Cicero headed for the study, and Illiana followed.

"Elsa?" Cicero said.

The young woman in the portrait glanced up, and saw the runes on the letter.

"Ah, that letter. I apologise, but I had little control over my leaving. And I knew my portrait would be able to address your questions."

Cicero and Illiana took seats, and Cicero shook his head.

"Why didn't you trust us?" Cicero said.

"Because you told me I did not trust anyone," Elsa said. "I knew what you had told me, and between that and my own experiences, I had to do what it took to maintain the closed loop. One step wrong, and the Greengrasses do not exist, so they cannot adopt me, yet I was adopted, and... what happens then, Cicero?"

"Strange things happen to those who meddle with time," Illiana said.

"Of that I am aware."

"The Greengrass family owes you a debt," Cicero said.

"Perhaps that is so, though I felt it was I who owed the debt; and so when it came time to establish the family..."

Cicero nodded, understanding what Elsa hadn't said.

"Still, in payment of that debt you feel is owed, I ask that you ensure the instructions I left are followed."

"Why is it important?"

"Because if you do not, the Greengrass family ends, and it is all because you named me Heiress!"

Cicero rocked back. " _What_!?"

Elsa sighed. "I needed to be Heiress, for I would not have been able to establish the family without that status. I knew I did not need to tell you; you would do it of your own accord, regardless of what anyone else said about it being a bad idea."

Cicero winced; Ragnok had advised him against it, but he'd pressed on.

"Whether Matthias had children or not, when I left, as I had worked out I would, he would be the last of the Greengrasses. I took the one course left open to me to continue the line of Greengrass, and that meant I got to name her, and if you've a problem with that, blame the nature of your magic rituals. I had to name her for it to work!"

"But Daphne Laurel?" Illiana said.

"They were the first names I saw on the Greengrass family tapestry."

"You were here... then and now. Might we see you again?"

Elsa considered Illiana's question. "It is possible, I suppose, though I know not when."

* * *

Late June, 1998.

Harry didn't think this meeting with Ragnok could be going much worse, and side glances at Ron and Hermione's faces showed they shared that opinion. In one sense, he didn't blame the goblins—he was quite happy to admit to there being a case against him and his friends. On the other, the goblins were refusing to listen to their side of it, and that injustice grated on him. If he was judging the situation correctly, it would be over soon.

Ragnok had stopped speaking, his attention drawn elsewhere, and when the trio turned to look themselves, they saw a flurry of ice and snow solidify into a young woman who reminded them remarkably of Daphne Greengrass, though the idea that Daphne would be caught dead in Muggle dress was laughable. She looked around the room, a half smile crossing her face as she saw Ragnok, before her face blanked upon seeing Harry.

Hermione didn't miss either of these reactions, and started analysing the new arrival. Her clothes had been tailored, as evidenced by the fit of her t-shirt and knee length skirt. Hermione dismissed the t-shirt—Harrods sold dozens a day; the woman had likely dyed a dozen or more white shirts before settling on that particular shade of blue. The skirt was like nothing she'd seen before; it looked like the designer had started stitching the fabric ends together and given up halfway, creating an asymmetric wrap look.

"Greetings, Director Ragnok. May your enemies fall to your blade."

"Greetings, Marta," Ragnok said, before turning to Harry. "Please provide a chair for Marta Pruinaen, Bringer of the Frost."

Harry turned away from Ragnok, very aware of Rockfist's hand on his axe.

"I doubt you can react faster than I, friend Rockfist," Elsa said. "I will snap the wand before he gets a spell off."

"I wasn't planning on aiming for his wand," Rockfist said.

While Hermione added the familiar way Elsa spoke with Rockfist to her observations, Harry tried very hard to ignore that, and he conjured a chair. Elsa sat down without hesitation, crossing her ankles, and Hermione started trying to make sense of the runes she could see on Elsa's skin.

"Are you in need of assistance?" Ragnok said.

"Not as such," Elsa said. "Though if Gringotts would send the Head a missive, informing them I am arrived, and to make due haste, I would be appreciative."

"Attend to it, Rockfist," Ragnok said, before turning to Elsa. "These three have committed crimes against the Goblin Nation. Your arrival interrupted the discussion of reparations for these crimes: twenty-one million Galleons, charged against Mr Potter's vaults."

Elsa raised an eyebrow, her eyes darting sideways three times.

"Your actions lost Gringotts a dragon," Ragnok said, "hence the need to immediately recoup our losses against Mr Potter's vaults. However, Mr Potter didn't act alone, and loan contracts have been prepared for Miss Granger and Mr Weasley to sign, pending Mr Potter's approval of the terms."

Elsa took a closer look at Hermione once her name was revealed, and nodded: she could well see her former tutor in the young woman's face.

Hermione and Ron blanched at Ragnok's words, but to their credit, they kept silent.

"Take the money from my vaults, and throw the contracts in the fire," Harry said. "I acknowledge the validity of the complaints Gringotts has levelled against us—it's why we came here to make things right. However, just as we were given no chance to explain our side, I'll be taking my business elsewhere, and telling the world to do the same." He shrugged. "They'll listen to me—I defeated Voldemort—and Gringotts will likewise get no chances to speak up."

Hermione dropped her face into her hands, sneaking a peek at Elsa's footwear. Thanks to six years of living with Lavender and Parvarti, she expected to see ballet flats or high heels—not ankle boots similar to her mother's hiking boots. The more pieces of the puzzle she got, the more Hermione was confronted with a fact she couldn't bring herself to admit: she was failing to put the puzzle of Marta Pruinaen together.

There was a sudden tension in the room, and Elsa stood up, pacing the length of the room. After a few minutes, she took her seat.

"I will hear your side," Elsa said. "But anger, whether justified or not, has no place in a meeting of peace, and so I shall hear it from the one who can tell me facts, unclouded by anger."

"You're up, Hermione," Ron said, a fleeting grin on his face.

Hermione took a minute to gather her thoughts, and laid out the entire story from conception to execution. The only interruptions were from Elsa, who asked her to elaborate on different points.

"Did you not consider asking Gringotts for assistance?" Elsa said, when Hermione was finished.

"We couldn't," Hermione said. "Our information said Gringotts was under Wizarding rule, and that meant Gringotts answered to Voldemort. We weren't about to hand ourselves over to the people who wanted us dead!"

Ragnok spat on the floor. "Miss Granger is correct. Had Gringotts been seen to be helping them... and if Voldemort had survived the Battle of Hogwarts..." He didn't finish, but they understood.

"And though you entered the Lestrange vaults, you took only a golden cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, which had been stolen by this Voldemort, and turned into a Horcrux," Elsa said. She drummed her fingers on her chair arm, and nodded to herself. "Director Ragnok, is it true of Gringotts that automatic forfeiture applies if a Gringotts vault is used to hold stolen treasure?"

Ragnok's eyes widened, and he pulled a ledger from the desk, pressing various runes on it before opening it. He noted some particulars, and then put the ledger away.

"Gringotts will send a message to the Ministry," he said. "The Lestrange vault stands in forfeiture, and reparations will be claimed against its contents. You three are absolved of any debt owed to Gringotts."

The trio nodded.

"You spoke well, Marta, when you said anger has no place in a meeting of peace," Ragnok said. "Gringotts apologises to you three, Miss Granger, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, and as a gesture of good faith, we shall place a quarter of a million Galleons in your vaults as apology, though Miss Granger and Mr Weasley will each need to open one."

Hermione and Ron looked to Harry, and he inclined his head.

"Thank you for the apology, Director Ragnok," he said, and Hermione and Ron were quick to echo Harry. "I withdraw my earlier statement, and look forward to sharing future profit with Gringotts."

* * *

Upon receiving the message from Gringotts, Cicero and Illiana Greengrass had contacted Matthias and Priscilla Greengrass, asking them to bring Daphne Greengrass and Astoria to Gringotts. The six had convened in a meeting room, and within minutes, Rockfist escorted Elsa into the room.

"Thank you, Rockfist," Elsa said, and when he had departed, she turned to the Greengrasses. "I came back as soon as I could."

"It's been about twenty-six years," Cicero said. "If that's soon, I wouldn't like to see you leave for a while. Everyone, this is Elsa, and technically, she's our eldest great-grandchild."

"Oh Merlin, you're to thank for my stupid name," Daphne said.

Cicero ignored Daphne's complaints with the experience of years, and pulled Elsa aside. "It's good you came," he said, quietly. "I expect you saw the trend towards one child, so you never accounted for a second. Astoria Lily isn't a Greengrass. We've all tried, Daphne especially, to recognise her as you did for Daphne..."

Elsa nodded, getting the sense that this was why she'd come back. "Very well. I will attempt the ritual with Daphne. Someone should obtain leave from the goblins to perform this ritual... and I believe once it is completed, I will have to leave for a while." A smile quirked her lips, and Cicero sighed with exasperation.

Once permission was granted, Daphne and Elsa went through the ritual together. At its completion, it was obvious to all that it had been successful, and as Astoria was engulfed by her ecstatic family, ice and snow wound around Elsa, and she disappeared with her customary crack of ice.

 **Other Notes of Import:** I admit it. Self-indulgence is the primary reason this chapter exists. I have been a fan of Daphne Greengrass for over a decade now, and this includes the fanon portrayal of Slytherin's Ice Queen Daphne. Following exposure to an abundance of Slytherin!Elsa artwork... I developed headcanons and pieces of Hogwarts stories where Elsa took the place of Daphne, or Daphne was related to Elsa somehow. Which culminated in this.

I should also note that I've read a lot of post Battle of Hogwarts fics, and a quite natural plot point is the goblin reaction to the break-in and dragon theft. It has *always* peeved me that in all of these stories, Hermione and Ron seem to get off scott free with the goblins, while Harry loses some percentage of his holdings. And even if that's a goblin thing, they could privately offer to pay Harry back... but they never do. So I fix that here, again as self-indulgence.

As noted in the first chapter, the original Lone Traveller concept was created by The Professional, before dunuelos took it over. The concepts of the Lone Traveller myth (reference: fanfiction dot net storyid 2673584, chapter 10) and goblin names (ref: chapter 3) come from The Professional, and I admit to borrowing them for a little bit of fun.

 **Something That May Be Cool:** I didn't choose 'Marta Pruinaen' as Elsa's goblin name on a whim. First I researched the origins of 'Maarek Illumian', and in doing so, discovered that 'Fury of the Light' was a very apt translation, if not a direct one. (Marek is a Slavic name, a vernacular form of Latin Marcus, which is believed to refer to Mars, the god of war; 'illumi' is Latin for 'lights'.)

Pruinaen was easy, for 'pruina' was one translation of 'frost', and I liked it better then 'gelu'. Finding a Slavic name that seemed at all appropriate was much harder, until I found Marta, which means 'lady' or 'mistress'. As with the translation of Maarek Ilumian, 'Bringer of the Frost' is not a direct translation of 'Marta Pruinaen', but I felt it was an apt one.

One might argue that The Professional has created a convention I should follow, and thus Elsa's goblin forename should be Maarta. To you, I say that dunuelos has variously used 'Maarek' and 'Marek', and it's easier for me to go with the correct spelling of 'Marta'.

Omake.

Early July, 2367.

The Greengrass family, descendants of Daphne Laurel, were sitting down to dinner when they were disturbed by the arrival of a family legend: Lady Heiress Elsa Greengrass.

"Welcome, Lady Heiress," Lord Greengrass said. "I trust you are well."

Elsa swept the table with a look. "What has become of Lord Cicero, Lady Illiana, Daphne Laurel and Astoria Lily?"

"My lady, they are long dead," Lord Greengrass said. "It's just over three hundred and sixty-nine years since we last have a record of you. We do have their portraits, should you need to talk to them."

Elsa shook her head. "No. Just tell Lord Cicero I returned... after leaving for a while."


	5. The Fourth Wall of NaNoLand

**Disclaimer:** The Office of Letters and Light is an America non-profit organisation which runs National Novel Writing Month, during which participants attempt to write fifty thousand words during the month of November. Veronica Mars was created by Rob Thomas.

 **Further Information:** I got challenged by someone—perhaps myself—to write... well, the following.

 **The Winter Wayfarer's Tales  
Chapter V: The Fourth Wall of NaNoLand**

A row of digital clocks hung in the air, each displaying a time denoted in hours, minutes and seconds. Observation followed by simple arithmetic showed that there was a twenty-six hour difference between the first and the last, although the clocks themselves numbered thirty-nine. Pursuant to certain international standards, the clocks were set to 24-hour time—and the very last one in the row was scarce minutes from beginning a new hour, and the second last only fifteen minutes behind it.

As that clock struck mid-morning, a flurry of ice and snow swirled below the row of clocks, twisting into the outline of a woman before it solidified.

* * *

In her wayfaring, Elsa could count the times she'd arrived out in the open on one hand—with digits left over. That she was in the open now was of less concern to her than the absence of people, and yet there was an odd sense of waiting in the air, entwined with nervous excitement and desperation. Elsa did a quick spin: she stood on a deserted beach, with no indications of habitation, human or not. She turned back to the sea, and though she scanned the waves, she saw no one waiting for her in the water.

What she saw was far more terrifying: the water was receding, leaving marine creatures stranded on the newly exposed shore. She encapsulated herself in a block of ice just as the tsunami hit, closing her eyes as the water raged about her. When the water had subsided, Elsa counted to three hundred before letting the ice dissipate, and she looked around to see what destruction had been wrought.

"What _is_ this place?" she said, whirling around, taking a better look at her destination.

The beach she stood on was better described as a bay, perhaps a kilometre wide at each outlying edge. At some point in the past, the bay had been built up as a port, with several berths for ships of various sizes. All of it, to the last plank, had been left unspoiled by the tsunami. Turning from the sea, Elsa noted the subtle arc of the bay, as well as the cliffs that began at each edge, rising in elevation along the arc. Multiple paths wound up the cliffs, and at the top Elsa saw green grass.

She allowed herself a smile, making her way up one of the paths.

* * *

As she reached the top, Elsa sensed a displacement of air, and she glanced up, seeing the row of clocks move backwards. She was drawn to one clock in particular—somehow knowing it was the local time for Norway—and she looked up to the sky. She glanced back at the bay, frowning. In the bay, she had stood beneath blue skies with fluffy white clouds scattered about; now she stood beneath a sky of black, stars arrayed in unknown constellations.

"The clock said it was just after midnight," Elsa said, looking back at the clocks. The clocks were in time order, the majority of them differing from the next one in line by one hour. "Perhaps as the sun moves, the sky..." Elsa cut herself off, facing the sea and checking the position of the sun.

There was no sun, not even behind the clouds as they moved. Despite the lack of a sun, there was light enough to see clearly, and as she watched, a cloud crossed the demarcation line dividing the day and night. The cloud disappeared, though the stars it should've covered remained visible. This world did not appear to be one she was immediately familiar with, and Elsa ran through the possibilities in her head. A world of magic seemed the most obvious, though she could see nothing as of yet to support that conclusion—and she didn't know enough about her wayfaring to know what would happen if she entered a world subject to scientific principles different to the ones she had learned.

It was a strange little world she found herself in, nevertheless. The grassy plain stretched almost as far as she could see, and while one side bordered the bay, a second side bordered a forest, where empty cages hung in trees and shook as if containing some invisible creature. At her feet was a crude path of wood set into the ground, and with a shrug, Elsa followed it. It led her to a fenced off mountain range with a pair of grand wooden doors as the sole access point, and it was here the clocks had moved to, floating above the doors.

Each door was twice as tall as she was, as wide as ten of her standing shoulder to shoulder, and neither opened when Elsa knocked. On a whim, Elsa created a battering ram of ice suspended on a slide. When the battering ram hit the doors, it exploded into shards of ice, but the doors stood undamaged.

"...wow."

Further investigation found a touch display with an alphabetic input keypad on the left side of the doors, and once Elsa was in range, a mechanical voice spoke.

"Input location of origin."

Elsa tapped out 'Norway', selecting 'Arendal' from the list of options.

"Arendal is currently ineligible to ascend; do you wish to proceed?"

The message made no sense to Elsa, and she entered locations in other countries. Each was met with the same message of ineligibility, with offer to proceed, and Elsa walked away in disgust.

* * *

As she wandered along, Elsa saw something that hadn't been there on her previous circuit: a large desk with a row of bookshelves behind it. The bookshelves were so crammed with books that their titles were impossible to make out, and to Elsa's eye, it looked very much like the reference desk she'd seen when Miss Puckle had taken her to London Library. She wandered behind the desk, looking through the shelves. The titles were unreadable, and when she tried to pull a book out, she discovered it wouldn't budge.

"What use is a reference desk if you can't reference anything?"

As if in answer, a series of loud thuds came from the bay, and Elsa's fingers twitched, a stout staff of ice forming in her hand.

"I believe I can answer some of your queries, my lady," a voice said, "if you'll agree not to attack me without cause."

Elsa kept the staff in hand as she glanced up. A man was standing on the other side of the reference desk. His dress was formal: a brown suit over a white collared shirt, a red bow-tie, and a brown bowler hat with a yellow band. He appeared to be bald—or at least, if he had hair, it was all under his hat. Most importantly, however, his face was blank. Not expressionless, mind... blank. Where people had a face, this man had smooth hairless skin.

"Please don't be alarmed," the man said. "I'm quite aware of my lack of a face; it's always this way at first. Sooner or later, she'll decide on a face for me—or maybe she won't; you never can tell with these people. Why, one time I got a face, and then it was hidden with shadows and a hat! I hope she doesn't give me a moustache this time, though. They're nasty things, moustaches." He paused. "Who are you, my lady, and by how do you come here?"

Elsa considered her reply. Figuring that this world didn't appear to be one that would recognise her various names and titles, nor one that would _care_ about them, she decided on her answer, dissolving the staff before she spoke.

"My name is Elsa," she said, "and this is just another tale in my wayfaring adventures. Who are you?"

"My name is Mr. Ian Woon," Mr. Ian Woon said.

"Ian?"

"Mr. Ian Woon, if you please," Mr. Ian Woon said, giving her a severe look. "It's two more words than simply 'Ian', and quite frankly, where I go, the two extra words are needed."

Elsa stared at Mr. Ian Woon; by themselves the words were understandable, and even the particular configuration of the words was clear enough, but what the sentence meant, she had no idea.

"Mr. Ian Woon, then," Elsa said. "What do you mean, the extra words are needed?"

"Why would you use one word when multiple words would do?" Mr. Ian Woon said, as if what he said made perfect sense. "Why say 'water', when you could say 'dihydrogen monoxide'?"

"That explained nothing," Elsa said.

"You think so?" Mr. Ian Woon said. "I thought it explained everything."

"I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong," Elsa said. "Perhaps you could explain what is happening around here, instead?"

"Certainly," Mr. Ian Woon said. "We'll start where everyone starts when they come to NaNoLand. Just follow me!"

* * *

"We'd better not go down there," Mr. Ian Woon said. "We wouldn't want to get in the way of the Post-Wipe set up, would we?"

The two stood away from one of the pathways, looking down into the bay as Viking warships offloaded people. At three different vantage points, lifeguard stations were being assembled, and while most of the offloaded people headed for one or another of the pathways, a fair few went to help with the assembly.

"We call it Post-Wipe Bay," Mr. Ian Woon said. "It's the sole access point to NaNoLand; I won't regale you with the tales of those who tried getting here some other way, except to say those tales lend credence to a legend that only a Viking warship can get here safely. Legend says that a fellow called Baty leads the fleet here every year; could be as much as his nineteenth year doing it."

"All of what I see here is being readied in preparation for them?" Elsa said. At Mr. Ian Woon's nod, she twirled a lock of hair through her fingers. "Why do they come here, Mr. Ian Woon?"

"Oh, that's easy to explain," Mr. Ian Woon said, and he walked off.

Elsa followed, and within seconds, found herself standing with Mr. Ian Woon at the grand wooden doors that had refused to open for her before. She turned back, staring at where the trails led down to Post-Wipe Bay, but Mr. Ian Woon was talking before she could fully realise her thought.

"This is the entrance to the thirty-one peaks of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges," Mr. Ian Woon said. "Most people quit when they hit the thirtieth peak—thirty means you've passed the challenge, after all. But there's more than a few of them who will strive for the thirty-first, and nowadays that summit's known as Overachievers' Peak."

Before Elsa could respond to that, a young woman dashed past them, skidding to a stop at the reference desk.

"The reference desk was nowhere near these doors when I first saw it..."

The young woman adjusted her glasses, and having caught her breath, cut Elsa's musings short. "If the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain," Glasses said, "what does that have to do with the price of peas in Persepolis?"

Scant seconds later, a green-eyed blonde jumped over the reference desk, and ran her fingers over the bookshelves, pulling out several different tomes. She began to flick through them, humming to herself.

"I'll need to check the validity of your question first," the green-eyed blonde said. "After all, if historically markets in Persepolis _didn't_ sell peas, that'll make things somewhat harder for you. Perhaps you are aware that Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire circa 550-330 BC, and today is ruins sixty kilometres north-east of the city of Shiraz in Fars Province, Iran?"

Glasses blinked.

"We have a geographical location and a historical period; now to relate it to the wild pea..." The green-eyed blonde selected another book, opening it. "Well, that settles it. The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East, and while archaeological finds of peas date from circa 4800-4400 BC in the late Neolithic era of current Greece, it seems they do not appear in the Near East until circa 2000 BC. With the Mediterranean Basin including Spain, and the Near East being an imprecise term that roughly equates to the Middle East of today, I conclude that markets in Persepolis were geographically and historically situated at a point where they could have sold peas."

Glasses blinked again, a look of awe crossing her face.

"Darius I and Xerxes I are definitely responsible for the building of Persepolis," the green-eyed blonde continued, "and perhaps Artaxerxes I had some level of responsibility as well. I apologise; I'm not too clear on that. It is probable that Persepolis owes its construction to the extensive road system of trading routes the Persian Empire maintained, as these routes—which may have been part of the Ancient Silk Road—allowed for the amassing of great wealth by the Empire. Unfortunately for your question, I see no evidence that these routes reached as far as Spain."

Glasses began giggling.

The green-eyed blonde snapped the books closed, popping them back on shelves. "I suggest that the markets in Persepolis didn't care one iota if it rained in Spain, or where, because their peas came from Persia itself. However, if you really need the price of peas in Persepolis to be affected, may I recommend that you look to the Greco-Persian Wars, which were a series of conflicts lasting fifty years which Darius and Xerxes instigated?" She paused, and with a shrug, added, "Xerxes mostly instigated his part of it because he couldn't believe someone had had the sheer nerve to trounce his daddy."

Glasses's laughter redoubled at the phrase 'trounce his daddy'.

"Quod erat demonstrandum," the green-eyed blonde said, giving Elsa a wink and disappearing into a crowd of people.

"I have more than a few questions, Mr. Ian Woon," Elsa said.

"It happens that I have more than a few answers, Elsa," Mr. Ian Woon said. "Would you like to see if any of them match?"

Elsa laughed. "Why ever not?" she said. "The green-eyed blonde, she used the reference desk to answer the other woman's question. Just before I met you, though, I had failed to remove any of the books. I had hoped they might explain more about this place."

"Ah, I see where you went wrong," Mr. Ian Woon said. "You see, you can't use the reference desk to answer your own questions, only other people's questions."

"Sif's panties, who came up with _that_?"

* * *

"How does anyone keep the geography of this place straight?"

No one appeared to be using the reference desk, so Elsa swung herself up on it, looking around.

"The Ranges and Post-Wipe Bay have not changed locations," she said, "or at least not that I can tell. I arrived here before anyone else did, so I have watched those who arrived after me build a number of structures. Like the shelter over there—"

Elsa looked over to it.

"—which has moved since the last time I saw it, and so I reiterate my question: how do you keep the geography of this place straight?"

"That shelter in particular has to move around," Mr. Ian Woon said. "Come with me."

Elsa followed Mr. Ian Woon, and within seconds, they stood outside a large barn-like structure. She looked back to the reference desk, finding that she could no longer see it.

"How far away is the reference desk now?"

"A ways," Mr. Ian Woon said. "If you're trying to make sense of the geography, my advice to you is: give it up as a lost cause. As long as you know what you're looking for, nothing is far away in NaNoLand." Before Elsa could ask, Mr. Ian Woon added, "and if you don't, odds are you'll find it sooner or later... emphasis on later. Now, you wanted to know why this shelter moves around."

Mr. Ian Woon escorted Elsa into the shelter, and the general noise and light of NaNoLand was replaced by a cacophony of animal noises and semi-darkness. Elsa stumbled backwards, and as she breached the doorway, the general noise and light of NaNoLand returned. Regaining both her balance and composure, Elsa eyed the outside of the shelter.

"If the structure to be warded moves around, a dedicated ward stone cannot be used; the ward would shatter upon the first movement," she said, fingers absently drumming against the fused gems set into her mythril bracelet. Blue and green motes swirled around her fingers as she did, though she ignored them. "Wards created by a set of stones defining a given boundary might work, but such wards are temporary—and from the apparent size of the shelter, the required size of the stones would be close to impractical."

While Elsa mulled over other possible implementations, discarding them one after the other as she decided they were invalid, she failed to notice the shelter beginning to shimmer. A hand shot out, and pulled her into the shelter before it disappeared on her.

"I had to grab you," Mr. Ian Woon said. "The shelter was going to up and move on you."

Elsa's eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, allowing her to see rows of cages and enclosures of varying sizes. Unlike the cages hanging at the outskirts of the forest, the various animals within the cages and enclosures were visible. Everything had been positioned to allow passage through the shelter, and as people walked around, the animals varied between ignoring them, enthusiastic insistence on being noticed, or another reaction between those extremes.

"I find this confusing," Elsa said. "Why are these animals visible, yet whatever is occupying those cages at the forest invisible? And why do the animals here react so differently? I have seen people be welcomed by one animal, and rejected by another."

"The cages near the forest are where the invisible flying guilt monkeys are kept," Mr. Ian Woon said. "Can you imagine the chaos if we let them fly free at will?"

"Sif above, what is an invisible flying guilt monkey?"

Mr. Ian Woon attempted to look like he was thinking by stroking his chin. Perhaps if he'd had a beard or even a goatee, his attempt would've been successful. It was not in the least bit successful—in fact, it was such a spectacular failure that Mr. Ian Woon's name appeared at the very top of the list of 'People Who Failed To Look Like They Were Thinking'... and the next eighteen places were left empty.

Elsa stared at Mr. Ian Woon, and he gulped.

"Climbing the peaks is a challenge—you only have so long to do it," Mr. Ian Woon said. "If you fall behind, the invisible flying guilt monkeys will find you, so they can guilt you into catching up. They're quite annoying, so the mere threat is quite effective for most people. A lesser known use is enforcement of the rules and regulations of NaNoLand."

"No one mentioned rules and regulations to me," Elsa said. "Do I need to be concerned with them?"

"Beyond observing civil discourse, the rules and regulations aren't really enforced," Mr. Ian Woon said. "That is, if you don't want to follow the rules, you don't have to. But for those who want to follow the rules, and might be tempted to break or bend them, invisible flying guilt monkeys provide incentive to behave one's self."

Making a mental note to avoid incurring the wrath of the invisible flying guilt monkeys, Elsa gestured at the enclosures. "And my other question?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"It is," Elsa said. "Hence I requested you to explain it." At Mr. Ian Woon's confused look, she rolled her eyes. "As obvious as it seems to you, it is not at all obvious to me, Mr. Ian Woon. My experience of animals shying away or ignoring a person is limited to my former stable hands. When my horses did not care for a stable hand, that stable hand had a history of neglect and abuse, and I would be forced to let that stable hand go before they ruined my horses."

Mr. Ian Woon conceded the point, and headed down one of the passageways, Elsa following after. "The animals can tell when someone they'd be good for comes along. And if the person agrees, well, I guess they adopt each other."

Ahead of them, the green-eyed blonde from the reference desk was distracted by an arctic fox jumping up at her. The blonde let out a startled laugh, her arms coming up to catch the arctic fox. She scritched it behind its ears, and Elsa could have sworn the fox looked away from the blonde to give her a look of amusement—but it was over so quickly, she must have imagined it.

"You're almost right for me... but I'm not sure."

For all that the green-eyed blonde was unsure, Elsa noted she didn't place the fox down, instead petting it in contemplation. A woman came running over, and Elsa caught a glimpse of her hair; it was pulled up into a bun, and secured with two hair sticks—except this woman used what appeared to be forks. Seeing the fox in the green-eyed blonde's arms, she grinned.

"Go with it, it's awesome."

The two appeared to be friends, for the green-eyed blonde threw her hands up, mock-scowling. "You're not even in the fandom, and yet you agree. I give in."

"My exposure to the fandom is through you; you should know that." With a laugh, the woman hurried over to another enclosure, picking up a fluffy rabbit and murmuring quietly to it.

"Mr. Ian Woon?"

"Yes, my lady?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"Is that woman wearing... forks in her hair?"

"They're sporks," Mr. Ian Woon said. "A versatile weapon of choice, the spork: the three points at the end can be used for jabbing, poking, and stabbing; the wide convex surface can be used to whap, smack, or fwap your foes; the concave curve is suitable for scooping or herding entities as needed; and if you're holding a spork, strong, true, and proud, well, something about it just makes you smile."

"And... what is a spork exactly, Mr. Ian Woon?" Elsa said.

"It's a combined fork and spoon," Mr. Ian Woon said.

"Of course it is."

* * *

"Invisible flying guilt monkeys," Elsa said, looking along the row of rattling cages. "Every time I turn around, I find something even stranger about this NaNoLand."

A series of grunts and squeals burst forth from the cages, and Elsa shook her head.

"If you are asking me to let you free, I have no keys for your cages."

Elsa heard a series of clicks to her left, and turned to see five cages with their doors swung open. Excited grunts filled the air, cages swinging back and forth before loud thumps sounded out, depressions appearing in the dirt. The next thing Elsa heard was the beat of wings, and the invisible flying guilt monkeys were gone. She looked around, hoping to see a disturbance that might signal where they'd gone, but saw nothing that looked like anyone was being harassed by five invisible flying guilt monkeys, much less a single invisible flying guilt monkey.

"Mr. Ian Woon said they guilt people into catching up and following rules," Elsa said. "What does that look like... or not look like, as the case may be?"

No answer was forthcoming from the remaining invisible flying guilt monkeys, apart from the rattling of cages—which ceased a second later as the faint stirrings of rhythmic chanting reached Elsa's ears. It was coming from deeper within the forest, beyond her ability to peer through the trees and assorted foliage. Elsa took a step into the forest, and then another one. The chanting didn't get any clearer, but she did find what appeared to be a trail.

She twitched her fingers, and the stout staff of ice from before reformed in her hand. The weight felt good in her hand, and Elsa took up the trail as it wound through the forest, the staff helping her keep her balance on the uneven ground. After a while, the chanting began to resolve into words, though Elsa still had to strain to hear them.

"...one of us one of us one of us..."

At times, the chanting seemed to upshift in volume, though the rhythm never changed. It always downshifted to the faint chanting that Elsa had first heard, and at last, the trees began to thin out a little. The thinning of the trees, and the bright lanterns hanging from poles, allowed her to see a massive clearing, populated by a small group of people.

Her staff hit something squishy, and Elsa looked down to see a tentacle slithering off. Moments later, the chanting hushed. Thinking quickly, Elsa moved closer to the clearing, while also moving away from where she'd met the tentacle.

"Friends, we have a visitor. Let us welcome them."

Elsa pressed herself against a wide trunk, and beyond peeking out, made no other movement. Now that she was almost in the clearing, she could see a giant... something in the centre. Whatever it was, it had innumerable tentacles coming out of its body, most of which were slithering around. The few that were stationary had people sitting on them, and under their clothes, Elsa could see a tentacle going up the length of their spinal column. To a one they were staring up at a woman, who wore a beatific expression. Every one of them held a glass, and as Elsa watched, various tentacles released a foul sludge into the glasses... and they all drank the sludge down.

"One of us one of us one of us!" they chanted.

"Yay for Kool-Aid!" a woman said. She was wearing a t-shirt with a sushi roll on it, and the sushi roll was using a typewriter.

"Why do you hide from us, friend?" the woman said, and her expression was less beatific. "Do not be afraid, for we are friends here, all striving for that lofty goal, the thirty-first peak of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges. Our room is filled with sofas, and blanket forts, and we have barbeques every week. And all the Kool-Aid you could want."

Elsa choked back a gasp. In a past wayfaring, she'd had dinner with a former teenage private detective (who rather reminded her of Anna in a way), and learned about all her cases, one of which had involved a 'cult'. From what she recalled of the explanation given, this whole meeting was looking rather like a cult—but how did the tentacle creature fit into the cult?

"One of us one of us one of us..."

"If I did not know better," Elsa said under her breath, "I would think that creature is controlling them."

 **help me**

Elsa stiffened as the plaintive cry filled her mind, before something old and alien brushed against her mind.

 **you are the first please help me**

 _I do not understand!_

 **very well little wayfarer i shall tell you the story you have not heard yet**

* * *

The first to come to NaNoLand was Baty, and it was Baty who gathered his party of twenty-one people and attempted to climb all thirty-one peaks. Of the twenty-one, only six made the summit of the thirty-first peak... and thereafter, the challenge was set: thirty peaks, no more. And for a time, peace reigned in NaNoLand.

Until _she_ came. In those days she was called by another name, but that name is lost to history.

She braved the thirty-first peak alone, and would've died... if not for a group of creatures. They found her, cold, weak, and near death. And as was their nature, they took her in, and restored her to health. It was here they made their fatal mistake: when the Queen learned how they could survive up on the highest peak of all, she became desirous of that ability, and when they would not share it with her, she stole an egg, not yet hatched, and fled down into the valley.

With no other choice, the group of creatures retreated deep within the mountains, lest another one of them be taken away. But the damage was done, for she had an egg, and when it hatched, it was enslaved to her will. She began to gather her chosen people; people who would be blessed with the ability to conquer the thirty-first peak.

She would be their Queen, and they would be her attendants.

So was formed the Cult of the OverAchievers.

* * *

 **it is our secretions that allow us to survive on that high peak by order of their queen they consume it and so become capable of overachieving**

 _I cannot understand them!_

 **they are but children little wayfarer they know not the damage they do by their overachieving they just see they have achieved more than ever and think no more of it**

 _That is insane!_

 **our secretions have that unfortunate side effect on your kind have you not noticed they think they are in a room with sofas and blanket forts drinking something called kool-aid**

 _What am I supposed to do? They all have a tentacle on their backs. What if I do something and you get hurt?_

 **little wayfarer i would rather die here by your hand than suffer any longer under them do whatever you must know that it would be a mercy to one who has suffered these last twelve years**

With that, the mind retreated from Elsa's own, and Elsa fell to her knees, breathing hard. She heard the rhythmic chanting again, and peeked out from behind the tree. Stretching out her left hand, she took a deep breath, and brought the fingers into a clenched fist.

"One of us one of us one of us..."

The tentacles stopped moving, frost coating them, and seeing this, Elsa unclenched her fist, snapping her fingers. The sharp sound was drowned out by the explosion of ice that shredded the tentacle creature from the inside out.

"One of us one of—"

The cult members slumped over, eyes wide open and staring without seeing.

Elsa got the hell out of the forest.

* * *

Like anyone else, Elsa had free reign of NaNoLand, though following her surreal experience in the forest, she'd decided to stay well away from it. Out of self-preservation, she made no mention of the OverAchievers to anyone, not even Mr. Ian Woon, and she heard nothing being said of them either—or at least nothing of concern. Ergo, she set her questions aside, and started wondering why everyone could go wherever they liked. Even with magic, Elsa had thought places would be limited to a maximum number of people, and no such limits were being enforced.

"Of course, they might have a variation of my policy," Elsa said. At times, she found it a helpful exercise to work through things by talking aloud or writing them down. The other people wandering about in NaNoLand usually left her alone about it, as they were doing the same thing. Some had offered to be a sounding board, including the green-eyed blonde, and though she'd been polite about it, Elsa had declined all offers.

"You want a hot mint chocolate?"

Elsa turned, seeing the green-eyed blonde holding out a steaming mug.

"I beg your pardon?" Elsa said, accepting the mug.

"So what I believe you were trying to say is 'thank you'."

"Thank you?"

"You're welcome!"

The green-eyed blonde grinned, skipping off in the direction of Post-Wipe Bay, where ships were coming in with more people. By Elsa's estimates, it was looking like NaNoLand would have a population as high as half a million people. Elsa had ruled just over a million people—or so the last census had said.

"I took my responsibilities as Queen seriously," Elsa said, sipping her drink, "and even I must admit that if I reviewed something, and found that nothing needed to change or improve, I left it alone rather than disturb a significant percentage of my subjects. If the aspects of NaNoLand are running smoothly, why disturb the people who have come here?"

As if on cue, the stars disappeared, as did the ever present sunless light. All Elsa could see was darkness so complete that even when she held a hand up to her face, she couldn't make out her hand. That was unnerving enough, and then it occurred to her that there wasn't any noise. Cessation of movement in such darkness made sense, but why weren't people calling out, asking what was going on?

"Hello?"

Her voice rang out, somewhat flat, and she frowned.

"If my senses are intact," she said, "and I must assume they are, for I can hear myself, smell the scent of my hair, and feel my clothing, then... something has removed all other things that my senses could perceive." She sighed. "I wish Mr. Ian Woon was here; he seems to have the habit of never being around until he can explain something to me, and I could use an explanation right now, even an overly long one."

Mr. Ian Woon didn't turn up.

"...I have no idea why I expected Mr. Ian Woon to turn up," Elsa said. "Other than that he seems to rather enjoy acting as a tour guide, and general local expert, and has turned up every other time I wanted him." She rubbed her hands together. "This is kind of unsettling, you know. You have turned up as soon as I needed something explained with more verbiage than was necessary every other time!"

Though, strictly speaking, needed was the wrong word: Mr. Ian Woon explained with more verbiage than was necessary whether Elsa needed it or not.

A thrum filled the darkness, and in the next instant, the sunless light had returned, along with the stars. NaNoLand appeared to be no worse for wear, or so Elsa thought.

"You want a hot mint chocolate?"

Elsa whirled on the green-eyed blonde. The steaming mug was in her hand, and Elsa looked between it and her own empty hand. Hadn't she been given this drink just before the darkness rolled in? Come to think of it, when had it disappeared from her hand?

"Well? Are you going to take it or not?"

Elsa accepted the mug, and the green-eyed blonde gave her a strange look before she skipped off in the direction of Post-Wipe Bay, where ships were coming in with more people.

Confused, Elsa began to sip her hot chocolate as she wandered through NaNoLand, with no real destination in mind. Though she passed several potential destinations, she felt no desire to stop, and so she continued wandering, passing a fenced off area. When she'd passed the fenced area for the third time, Elsa drained the last of her hot chocolate, and looked up at the bright sign.

 _Plant a tree in the Persimmon Grove!_

Already a number of trees had been planted, and were putting up seedlings. Each tree had one of those three by five white index cards in its plot, and after seeing others pick the cards up to read them, Elsa followed suit.

 _Britian Briitan Birtain ... THE MOTHERLAND_ —AernJardos.

As Elsa read the card, a smile tugged at her lips. A recent Wayfaring had brought her to the christening of a Princess Aurora, where she'd been forced into a battle with an evil fairy, Maleficient to prevent the fairy enacting a curse against Aurora. Following her victory, the King of France—and Aurora's father—had invited her to witness the signing of the betrothal agreement between the Kingdoms of England and France, which mandated that Aurora would marry Prince Phillip just after her sixteenth birthday.

"I would love to show this card to King Hubert," she said. "Perhaps it would take some of the pomposity out of him."

She placed it down, walking through the rows until she saw a seedling with a card that no one else had disturbed, and she knelt down to read it.

 _"This is your area of expertise, is it not? Knowing what sort of people go to places and why."_ ...well, you can't accuse me of getting too specific. —snowbug.

"This is amusing, but what function does the Persimmon Grove serve?" Elsa said.

"Persimmons come from perma-permissions, and other variants of such," Mr. Ian Woon said, appearing from nowhere. "And the function the Persimmon Grove serves... well. To be honest, no one really knows. I have heard tell of a Captain Obvious who works in the Redundancy Department of Redundancy, usually on the graveyard shift, and often under the influence. Under Captain Obvious' supervision, unintentional dirt has been obtained, walls have been broken, and his excuse is always 'the keyboard did it'. I mention this because as far as anyone knows, the Redundancy Department of Redundancy, under the supervision of Captain Obvious, Supervisor of the Redundancy Department of Redundancy, maintains the Persimmon Grove. Rumour has it that Captain Obvious's real work lies in padding, though that has always been denied, with vehemence."

Elsa looked at Mr. Ian Woon's lack of a face, gave a moment's thought to how he could speak without a mouth, not to mention see and smell without eyes or a nose, and then dismissed it; it wasn't that important—not compared to the mammoth task of parsing Mr. Ian Woon's latest verbiage. She gave up after fifteen minutes, deciding it was easier to pretend she understood.

"And why are... persimmons important?"

"Persimmons mean you can show off other people's work," Mr. Ian Woon said. "They're very important, persimmons."

Elsa watched another person plant a persimmon seed, using their hands to cover the seed with dirt. A memory stirred, and she turned to Mr. Ian Woon.

"Do you like jokes, Mr. Ian Woon?" Elsa said.

"I suppose I don't mind them, although I've heard hundreds, if not thousands," Mr. Ian Woon said. "Do you want to tell me one, and if we're lucky, it'll be one I've never heard?"

"There was this one time I got stuck having to go to the bathroom during the night," Elsa said. "And to make matters worse, it was an outside bathroom. Well, needs must, so I headed out there, and did my business. Now, Mr. Ian Woon, I consider myself a fairly direct person; the type of girl who calls a spade a spade." Elsa gave a nonchalant shrug. "And then on the way back, wouldn't you know it, I fell over—"

Mr. Ian Woon's jaw dropped. "Elsa, _no_!"

"A fucking shovel."

Mr. Ian Woon facepalmed, and spread his fingers as if peeking through the cracks. "Maybe it didn't—Holy Baty, DUCK!"

Elsa dropped into a split, and not a second too soon, for something flew over her head, hitting the fence.

"Is that a—"

Mr. Ian Woon dropped to his knees, clapping a hand over her mouth. "Don't say bleep."

With no small amount of asperity, Elsa pulled his hand off, using it as leverage to stand up. She looked over to the fence, her eyes widening. For the most part, the shovel seemed to be rather standard, much like would be found in any gardening section of a random store. Its blade, however, was stained maroon, and Elsa didn't need Mr. Ian Woon to tell her it was dried blood.

"Mr. Ian Woon? All of a sudden I would like to be anywhere but here, please," Elsa said. "Um, preferably as far away as possible, if you do not mind."

For a minute or two, Mr. Ian Woon said nothing. At last he nodded.

"Walk to the exit, keeping it in sight. When we exit, start running. Until someone else says bleep, its focus is on you."

"Do you know how to stop it?" Elsa said, extending her left hand. With a snap of her fingers, the shovel was buried under a thick layer of clear ice; Mr. Ian Woon had said to leave the shovel in sight, and Elsa wasn't going to tempt fate by taking her eyes off the shovel before she had to. She figured it wouldn't hurt to make it harder to follow her, as long as it didn't sap too much of her power doing so.

"Not at all, though I do have a plan that should work. Follow me."

Elsa backed up to the exit of Persimmon Grove, adding a few more layers of ice as she did. Once she was at the exit, she sent another burst of power at the shovel, and bolted after Mr. Ian Woon.

Less than a minute after her exit, the ice layers shattered...

* * *

Elsa's lungs burned, but she forced the question out between gasps for air.

"What _was_ that?"

"The Travelling Bleep of Death," Mr. Ian Woon said, as if he wasn't running for his life from a homicidal killing shovel. "You can safely call it TSoD for short, not that I know why anyone would use one word when multiple would do. But I've already said that, right?"

"Travelling Shovel of Death?"

Elsa jerked herself to the right before she'd finished speaking, and the Travelling Shovel of Death whistled past her. Ahead of her, the adoption shelter shimmered into existence, and the Travelling Shovel of Death wedged itself between two wooden boards. As Elsa had it in her sights, it couldn't move, and when the adoption shelter shimmered out of existence seconds later, the Travelling Shovel of Death went with it.

"Whether you say bleep again or not," Mr. Ian Woon said, "the Travelling Bleep of Death's going to try hunting you down so it can kill you. The Travelling Bleep of Death doesn't have an exact lock on you... as long as you don't say bleep. Unfortunately for me, while you are currently the Travelling Bleep of Death's preferred victim, it's not picky—it'll kill anyone, even innocent bystanders. I believe the Travelling Bleep of Death's motto is 'if they're bystanders, they can't be that innocent'."

Mr. Ian Woon stopped at the grand doors blocking access to the Traditional 1,667 Ranges, and looked behind him. Seeing Elsa slowing to a walk, but no Travelling Shovel of Death, he started tapping at the keypad.

Elsa had caught her breath by the time she arrived at the doors. "I would ask what you are doing," she said, pleased that she got that out without needing an extra breath, "but honestly, I am more interested in who brought that thing to NaNoLand and why it has been allowed to stay."

"I told you, the Travelling Bleep of Death's got a mind of its own," Mr. Ian Woon said. "As to who brought it, would you believe a gnome?"

"In that case, gnomes are going right after trolls on my personal list of distrust," Elsa said.

"Never met a troll myself, but gnomes are awful little buggers," Mr. Ian Woon said, giving the keypad a final tap. "Ah, that should do it."

A crack appeared in the grand doors, which grew wider as they swung open.

"If we were doing this right," Mr. Ian Woon said, stepping through, "there'd be trumpets blaring, angels singing, and a sense of triumph in the wind. But we're not, so it'll lack some of the grandeur. Eh, it's an impressive sight, nevertheless. Mind your step, there."

As Elsa stepped through the grand doors, she saw thirty peaks going into the distance. Their arrangement was such that she could tell each peak was higher than the last, but this she noticed in passing, for her eyes were drawn to a small, verdant speck up high on the horizon—the thirtieth peak. She stared at it, an unidentifiable feeling coiling in her stomach.

"Do you want a hotdog?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"Mr. Ian Woon, we have the Travelling Bleep of Death after us, and you want to stop for a hotdog?"

"Well, it seems a shame to come through here and not partake of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges Viewing Platform Snack Shop," Mr. Ian Woon said. "They have excellent hotdogs, you know. And it's not like it's out of our way—we've got to walk past it no matter what."

Elsa followed Mr. Ian Woon to a small building, perhaps the size of a caravan.

"A little early for hotdogs, aren't you?" the worker said.

"I am following Mr. Ian Woon, being under the impression we are trying to lure the Travelling Bleep of Death into a trap," Elsa said.

"Oh, so you're the idiot who said shovel!"

It was silent, quick, and above all else, _messy_.

The worker's head bounced at Elsa's feet, though she didn't notice. Her eyes were locked on the Travelling Shovel of Death, which was suspended in mid-air, receiving a fresh coating of arterial blood. As the decapitated body fell over, Elsa swallowed multiple times, trying to keep her stomach where it was, and took a step back to bring Mr. Ian Woon into her peripheral vision.

"You said the Travelling Bleep of Death hunts down the person who most recently said bleep; that it will hunt them down until it has killed that person. Does anyone know what the Travelling Bleep of Death does if someone says bleep, and before that person is dead, someone else says bleep, and is then killed?"

"This has never happened before," Mr. Ian Woon said, rather more cheerfully than Elsa thought the situation warranted.

"Of course not." Elsa took a deep breath. "Should we start running again?"

"It's not like we'll be getting any hotdogs now, is it? Yes, we should—"

The Travelling Shovel of Death swung around, launching itself at Elsa. She had no time to react, and perhaps that was what had been intended, for reacting might well have ended with the Travelling Shovel of Death buried in Elsa's chest.

"It missed," Mr. Ian Woon said. His tone was flat.

"Are you saying that it missing me is _not_ a cause for celebration, Mr. Ian Woon?" Elsa turned around, and let out a breath she hadn't been aware of holding as she saw the Travelling Shovel of Death leaning against a rock.

"I'm saying I believe that was a friendly warning." There was a pause. "Wait a moment, would you?"

"If I must."

Clattering noises came from behind Elsa. When they ceased, Mr. Ian Woon joined Elsa in staring at the Travelling Shovel of Death. In each of Mr. Ian Woon's hands was a long roll with a hotdog and various condiments.

"Please tell me that is tomato sauce."

"What else would it—oh." Mr. Ian Woon looked at his meal, and tossed it in the nearby bin. "Well, that's the end of my appetite. Anyway, like I said, it was a friendly warning."

"A friendly warning? How was that a friendly warning?"

"You were asking about its modus operandi not even ten minutes ago," Mr. Ian Woon said.

Elsa's eyes widened. "Oh... that _was_ a friendly warning." She risked a quick look at Mr. Ian Woon. "Should we run _now_?"

"Running sounds good to me," Mr. Ian Woon said.

* * *

Elsa had guessed that Mr. Ian Woon planned to take her up the Ranges, at least to the first peak. When the ground stayed as flat as ever, and no cliffs appeared to demand they scale them to progress, she began to suspect she was wrong. When she looked up, and saw they seemed to be in a valley surrounded by the Rangers, she was certain of it. Ahead of her, Mr. Ian Woon had stopped, and she slowed to a walk, breathing hard.

"I thought you were taking me up the Ranges!"

"Do you have a map of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges?"

Elsa blinked at the apparent non-sequitur. "Sif's panties, where would I have gotten a map from?"

"Have you seen the fair stalls?" Mr. Ian Woon said, looking at the mountainside of the Ranges. "Talented artisans often ply their wares there, and will make you a beautiful map, but those maps are rather generic, if I do so say myself, and even if they're tailored to the person, they're not going to be too much help." He shook his head and began walking along the mountainside, stopping every so often. "They're optional in any case. The map you'd want... well, you make it yourself."

Elsa opened her mouth, considered her words, and closed it without saying anything. She bit her lip, went to say something, and said nothing at all. For his part, Mr. Ian Woon waited for her to be ready, walking back and forth along one particular stretch of mountainside.

"I make the map myself," Elsa said at last. "But where do I get the map from to make a copy?"

"You misunderstand me," Mr. Ian Woon said. "In nineteen years, there has been no map anyone can copy. You either make the map as you go, or you take an aerial photograph of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges beforehand—the quality of which is determined by the investment you put into it. Both ways have proven successful, and there have been plenty of people who found that even with an aerial photograph, they still had to make the map as they went. You choose the method that works for you."

"I think I begin to understand, Mr. Ian Woon," Elsa said, ice and snow swirling around her fingers. Though she was feeling the effects of running too long, and too hard, she felt she had recovered magically—though that may have been the effects of adrenaline. "How many attempts may I make at the climb?"

"You can try every year, as far as I know." Mr. Ian Woon stooped to pick up a rock, throwing it against the mountainside, and whatever he was expecting to happen forthwith, didn't. "While the idea is to do it in one shot, lots of people have abandoned false starts, before making that year's successful attempt."

"Perfect," Elsa said, an amused smirk quirking her lips. "Tell me, what stops me from using the map from my first attempt in any subsequent attempts?"

"That'd be the challenge rules."

"That makes no sense; the rules are not enforced—or so you told me."

"Oh, no one will say anything," Mr. Ian Woon said. "You can always answer a rules, regulations, and other minutiae question with 'you can ignore it'; however, such questions require by the book answers. And the challenge rules say that if reattempting a previous version of the climb, all notes relating to that climb must be left behind so one cannot refer back to them."

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose, and Mr. Ian Woon picked up another rock, throwing it with the same results as before.

"Well, that settles it: we need a new plan," Mr. Ian Woon said. "And with a bit of luck, we can still use this one."

"Because this one worked out so well."

Mr. Ian Woon ignored the sarcasm. "Before, when you buried the Travelling Bleep of Death with ice, it didn't seem as if you were focused on creating it in any particular shape."

"I was more interested in creating a lot of ice, yes. What of it?"

Mr. Ian Woon pulled out a set of blueprints. "We're going to need ice beams fused together to create frames. Is that going to be a problem for you?"

Elsa looked over the blueprints, raising an eyebrow. "While this may not be the best time for discovery, I do not often exceed my limits, and I do not know for sure that I have any. I think I would benefit from knowing what my practical and theoretical limits are."

"I'll keep a lookout for the Travelling Bleep of Death," Mr. Ian Woon said. "I'm hoping being in the vicinity of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges will add to the difficulty of finding you."

Elsa created a snowball in her hands, setting to work.

* * *

As it turned out, Elsa was excellent at creating beams of ice to fit precise measurements, and thanks to the level of her control, the monstrous contraption was finished far sooner than it otherwise would've been. Two rectangular ice frames had been set up parallel to each other, before being fused together with beams at each end on the bottom, and at one end on the top. At the centre of each frame, two massive ice posts were set into the frames to create a drop channel, spaced apart at a tenth of the distance between the frames.

Near the top of the drop channel, a small beam was extended across the smaller distance, providing a ledge on which rested a massive counterweight. The counterweight looked like a giant's dumbbell, but unlike most dumbbells, the counterweight's bar appeared to have been bored through a massive ice beam. The massive beam was long enough to rest against the beam fusing the rectangular frames at the top, though not long enough to reach the ground.

Attached to the end of the massive beam was a rope Mr. Ian Woon had found somewhere, as well as an empty sling.

Elsa leaned against one of the beams forming the drop channel, breathing hard. Her already pale skin had lost even more colour, her hair had come undone from its braid, and sweat had frozen her hair in clumps.

"Are you going to be able to complete the plan?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"I got this far on adrenaline," Elsa said. "I think it will carry me a few minutes longer. On that note, I have no idea what you asked me to make, but the blueprints say I am done with it."

"Do you want the French name or the English name?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"I doubt it matters, Mr. Ian Woon."

"I'll tell you the French name; it's fancier," Mr. Ian Woon said. "You have built a floating arm trébuchet."

"I was wrong. The language matters; I have never heard that word."

"In English, it's a floating arm trebuchet." Mr. Ian Woon sounded rather pleased with himself, and Elsa folded her arms, staring at him.

"I am trying hard to stay conscious, so I will ignore that you just used the same word in both languages, and ask why you had me build this trebuchet."

"It might be the same word, except you say it differently," Mr. Ian Woon muttered, just loud enough for Elsa to hear, but not so loud that she'd feel obliged to reply. "Anyway, if it works, the Travelling Bleep of Death won't be an issue anymore."

"What do you mean, _if_ it works?" Ice and snow swirled around Elsa's hands with far more strength than should've been possible, sputtering out after a few seconds.

"Just that it might not work," Mr. Ian Woon said, swallowing hard. "There are two different types of trebuchets, see? You have to keep the floating arm trebuchet small, or it loses its efficiency—and what's more, the bigger it is, the harder it is to build the drop channel such that it performs effectively. What you've built is at least twenty times the maximum size it should be."

"You provided blueprints specifying this excessive size," Elsa said, and even in her exhaustion, her voice was sufficient to freeze nitrogen. "If you knew from the outset that problems would arise with its size, why did you not tell me? The construction appears simple enough, and I believe I could have scaled the pieces down to an appropriate size. It would have saved me a great deal of effort."

Mr. Ian Woon looked at the ground and mumbled something. Elsa hissed, a stream of frost curling from her mouth before it dissipated, and he looked up.

"Trebuchets came to NaNoLand twelve years ago," Mr. Ian Woon said. "And this is the first time ever a trebuchet's been put in, see? So I wanted to build the biggest one ever, and as you said, the construction was simple enough, not like the other type of trebuchet. It's so hard to make a trebuchet seem natural, and not just there to be there, and it finally happened. It's probably never going to happen again, too, so this was my one and only chance."

"...I do not have the energy to deal with this."

Mr. Ian Woon eyed Elsa, and nodded. She looked awful. "Yes, let's deal with the Travelling Bleep of Death. You'll need to stand in front of the sling, with the drop channel in front of you."

Elsa's movements were slow and unsteady, but she retained enough awareness to take a position within the trebuchet, right under the drop channel. She took three steps backwards, and when Mr. Ian Woon shot her a thumbs up, she focused on the small beams keeping the counterweight from dropping.

"Mr. Ian Woon, you idiot! You said you could deal with that thrice damned shovel!"

The Travelling Shovel of Death appeared, shooting straight for Elsa as if launched from a bow, and Elsa dissolved the small beams holding the counterweight up. At the same time, she threw herself to the side with what strength she had remaining, getting halfway through the trebuchet frame. The counterweight fell straight down, acting as a lever to force the massive beam of ice up into the air. The attached sling—really a thick sheet of ice with a concave curve to it—shot forward, slamming into the Travelling Shovel of Death, and exactly as Mr. Ian Woon had hoped, the trebuchet launched the Travelling Shovel of Death right into the Ranges.

Mr. Ian Woon had dragged Elsa to safety when she fell, and in a shocking display of misplaced priorities, he made a point of watching where the Travelling Shovel of Death landed before calling for help.

* * *

The white haze lifted, resolving into more white haze. Elsa blinked, starting to make out a room. The room was large, with a row of beds against two walls. All the beds were empty, except hers. She moved her arm, and felt something in her right hand, which turned out to be an iced over intravenous line.

"I had to call some coaches to help me get you out of the valley," Mr. Ian Woon said. "They're the ones who got you here, and set the intravenous line up to deliver fluids to you. I could tell when you were getting better; the fluids turned to ice."

"That does not surprise me; ever since I began wayfaring, my power has tended to protect me in the event that I cannot." Elsa reached over, gritting her teeth, and pulled the line and needle out. "What of the Travelling Bleep of Death? Is it still pursuing me?"

"It landed somewhere between the fifth and sixth peaks of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges," Mr. Ian Woon said. "I rather suspect the rather comprehensive defeat you dished out convinced the Travelling Bleep of Death not to bother you again."

Elsa nodded, and propped herself up on the bed. "I should dismantle the trebuchet."

"No, please don't do that! I've always wanted my own trebuchet, and now I have one!" Mr. Ian Woon beamed at her. "Thank you!"

"I can ensure it stays intact for now, without much cost to myself—it is already formed, after all. I will be leaving at some point, and I cannot guarantee its permanency after that."

Though Elsa tried to deliver the news with as much kindness as possible, she knew Mr. Ian Woon was disappointed. A memory of a world visited long ago came back to her, and she shrugged, snapping her fingers. It wouldn't cost her much to try.

"Mr. Ian Woon? At present, I am using a small portion of my power to ensure the trebuchet does not melt. I repeat that I cannot guarantee anything, but I have given the trebuchet its own personal flurry, and I hope this will be sufficient to prevent its melting when I leave."

"Oh, Baty, thank you!"

Elsa smiled. "It is no trouble, although I believe you have a more pressing concern. I held the counterweight up with ice, and you will need to modify the trebuchet before you can use it again."

"Oh, I'm sure I can rig something up so it can be used again," Mr. Ian Woon said. "As long as it won't melt, I can work on it for as long as necessary."

Elsa looked around the room once more, lifting her arms up and stretching. "This place is an infirmary?"

"The Post-Climb Clinic, yes," Mr. Ian Woon said. "After all, even if you succeed in the challenge, it doesn't mean you got out of it without even so much as a scratch. Of course, not everyone uses it—some prefer to go off alone and deal with issues elsewhere. It might be of interest to you to know that the Post-Climb Clinic is only a small part of this building, and if you're ready to leave, I can show you the rest of it."

Elsa got up from the bed. "I thought everything in NaNoLand had been separated out into its own place."

"Oh, they used to be," Mr. Ian Woon said, "but in a few cases, that turned out to be rather inefficient. So it all got put together, and there was more efficiency and productivity. Well, maybe not much more, but still more than otherwise." Mr. Ian Woon rubbed his hands together. "Let's see... oh, there's a coffee shop and café near here, and we haven't had anything to eat!"

* * *

In the usual way of things, a distraction popped up on the way to find something to eat, this time in the form of a crowd milling about outside. It looked more interesting than food at any rate, so Elsa wandered out that way to find out more. The crowd had surrounded a stage, looking curious in a vague sort of way. A man stood on the stage, and Elsa frowned.

"There is something wrong about that man," she said in an undertone to Mr. Ian Woon, "but I can't put it into words."

"We're all here to climb a mountain!" the man said. "I am beecuz, and I'd like to know how many of you just climb that mountain, no prep, no gear, or anything!"

Elsa looked around, seeing that about half of the crowd had shot their hands up.

"Great, great," beecuz said. "Now, how do you do that?"

Various people started shouting out answers, and beecuz lifted his hand after several minutes.

"Perhaps I was not clear. I don't need to know what you do. I need to know _how_ you do it."

Elsa reviewed the answers she'd heard, frowning. The answers given had, in her estimation, addressed 'how' in reasonable detail—even if a couple could've benefited from more detail for clarity's sake.

"You see," beecuz said, "I know how to climb a mountain: I plan it out in advance, checking weather predictions, I figure out what gear I'll need to bring—ropes, crampons, ropes, carabiners, quickdraws, and other such stuff—and then the mountain is no match for me, because whatever happens, I will have the tools to beat it. So again... _how_ do you climb the mountain when you've made no preparations and brought no gear?"

"You're labouring under a misconception," a woman said. She was perhaps old enough to be Elsa's mother. "I've realised we answered your question badly. Very few of us truly go into it with nothing—we have done a minimal prep and outfitting. Your way seems to work well for you, and so you're prepared whatever you find. But when we come across something our minimal gear can't solve, we have to solve it a different way."

"All right, then," beecoz said. "How do you do it then? Explain how. Teach me how to go up that mountain range with almost nothing and still get to all thirty peaks."

After several minutes, Elsa turned to Mr. Ian Woon. "He is uninterested in anything the crowd is saying. My understanding of what they're saying is that they have a spark of talent for climbing mountains with minimal preparation and gear, and that's not something teachable. Even that green-eyed blonde has come up and said she's tried going up the mountain with no plan and has failed utterly because she hasn't that particular talent. And yet, everything they say is met with scorn and arrogance."

Mr. Ian Woon nodded, his face grim. "Well, he's getting nowhere with that attitude, and the crowd's dispersing anyhow."

Up on the stage, beecuz was turning red. "Why're you all being rude to me!? I just asked a question, and you're answering with answers that don't answer, and then being defensive when I point that out!"

"Maybe it's more your arrogant attitude, you arse!" someone shouted, their voice very British.

"My attitude?" beecuz's red face was reaching shades of purple. "I'm not the one acting like a fucking snowflake!"

A hush fell.

Ice and snow flurried out from Elsa's fingers, whipping up her hair.

"Snøfnugg?" Elsa said, and frost billowed from her mouth. "Jeg vil jævla snøfnugg ham!" _Snowflake? | I will fucking snowflake him!_

A hand reached down from the sky, and it was spinning a giant hammer. The hammer slammed into beecuz, and he screamed as he disappeared over the horizon. It was perhaps fortunate for beecuz that he had been hit by the hammer—it was over sooner, and with less injury to his person than whatever Elsa had been planning. Before his screams had become too faint to hear, people had already resumed their various pursuits.

Elsa took a deep breath, pulling her power back under control. "While I sort myself out," she said, "would you please tell me what that was?"

"Banhammer of the Gods," Mr. Ian Woon said. "beecuz won't be getting back to NaNoLand anytime again, if ever." At Elsa's look of confused expectation, he elaborated. "It's like I said before, about the only enforced rule is civil discourse. You don't believe what beecuz was saying qualified as civil discourse, do you?"

"By Sif, no."

"I hesitate to call it arbitrary," Mr. Ian Woon said, "but the reasons why the Gods extend the banhammer are very unclear to us mortals. Some are banhammered in an instant, others go ages without being banhammered, and while in the end you know which rule was violated, it's not so clear why the difference in how quick to act the Gods were."

"If I ever meet a god, perhaps I will ask," Elsa said.

Mr. Ian Woon smiled. "I believe we were on our way to get food. Shall we resume our interrupted journey?"

Elsa returned the smile, and they walked off, leaving a cruddy stage and the smell of ozone in the air.

* * *

Elsa glanced at the coffee shop, keeping well back from the entrance.

"You don't want to go in there, do you?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

"I cannot tell you why," Elsa said, "but you have the right of it. I approached it, and the sense I get from it makes me not want to go approach any further than I have to. I have encountered such things before; wards set up to warn people off, or block access."

"I feel quite stupid now," Mr. Ian Woon said. "I'd noticed that in prior years; the people who come here to participate in the challenge, they all come in here no problem. But people like you, who aren't here to participate in the challenge, they've always chosen the café over the coffee shop." He sighed. "I'll get us some drinks. You go snag a table in the café, all right?"

"I would prefer that, thank you," Elsa said, and with that, she slipped over to the café entrance.

As she stepped inside, Elsa stopped short. The café was larger than she had expected, and due to its placement in the corner of the building, the corner walls were instead full length windows. Brown tiles covered the floor, with the walls and ceiling a pale blue. The tables were wood, each sitting varying amounts of people, and the chairs were straight backed with an upholstered seat.

Stools were lined about halfway up the counter where one placed their orders, though Elsa chose a table off to one side, the better to look around. It was also across from a Viking shield on the wall, though it looked nothing like any Viking shield Elsa had ever known. There was a Viking helmet on top, and the shield had images engraved into its front: a mug filled with a hot beverage; something that might have been a typewriter; two crossed pens in front of a stack of a paper; and the number 19.

Elsa picked up the menu, and after perusing the menu, went to the counter to order two ham, cheese and tomato toasties. On the way back to her table, a couple on the other side of the café—who appeared to be in the midst of an argument—began to get louder.

"Well, I don't know why you're asking me for my opinion, Mimi," the man said. "I think you should do it if that's what'd make you happy, and you've done it before, so that should help you do it again, I guess. But if you don't want to, don't do it."

"I want to do it," Mimi said, "but it'll be hard, Tim."

"It was hard last time, and you still did it," Tim said. "What's so different about now?"

"What's different!?" Mimi threw her hands up. "I'll tell you what's different: I'm no longer lightheaded, hyper and excited, and now I _know_ how bad the second week can be. I'm not sure I want to go through that again."

"What about the tricks you used?" Tim said. "Who says you can't use them again?"

Mimi rolled her eyes. "Footnotes and annotations on a map; yeah, they were such a brilliant idea. You know, I think those footnotes and annotations made me hallucinate that you saved the whole world and won the lottery!" Her voice went up an octave on 'whole world', before dropping back to normal.

Tim got up and stormed out in a huff, and Mimi just sat there, making notes and nibbling on a scone. Following Tim's departure, Mr. Ian Woon came in, holding one steaming mug, and one empty mug. When he saw Elsa, he came and sat down, pushing the steaming mug over to Elsa.

"I like this café, it has character," Elsa said, sipping her drink. "Oooh, it's a salted caramel hot chocolate. Tasty!"

"That green-eyed blonde was working at the counter. She suggested it for you," Mr. Ian Woon said.

"I have seen a lot of her," Elsa said. "Does she have a name?"

"Are you planning on screaming it at the ceiling later?" Mr. Ian Woon said.

" _Mr. Ian Woon_!"

Mr. Ian Woon held his hands up. "Sorry, sorry."

He was saved from further reply by the arrival of the toasties. Elsa started on hers, waiting to see how Mr. Ian Woon ate without a mouth. He hadn't even touched it by the time Elsa had finished hers.

"Are you going to eat that?" Elsa said.

"I guess not," Mr. Ian Woon said.

"Perhaps I should have asked the better question: _can_ you eat?"

"Not while you're looking, no," Mr. Ian Woon said, and he pushed the plate over to her. "Knock yourself out."

"What if I just wait outside for you?" Elsa said.

"If you wouldn't mind," Mr. Ian Woon said. "It won't be hard for me to catch up to you, so spend some time exploring around here. I'll be along as soon as possible."

* * *

Mr. Ian Woon had said the Post-Climb Clinic was a small part of the building, and compared to the café, it was. Upon discovering her options were explore the coffee shop on the ground floor or head upstairs, Elsa made her way up the stairs, stepping out into a thick shag carpet. Doors spread out along the hallway, with engraved plates affixed to them. The first one said 'Casino', and intrigued, Elsa stepped inside.

A pretty redhead sat at a reception desk.

"Welcome to the NaNoLand Casino," the redhead said, not even looking up from her book. "If you wish to partake of the slot machines, please be advised that all results are binding—there will be no exchanges. I am the Keeper of the Final Bet, and my word is law. Thank you, and have a good time at NaNoLand Casino."

The casino was deserted, and Elsa found herself a slot machine in a corner, from where she could see if anyone came into the casino. The screen of the slot machine was a bright white, with large black text proclaiming 'pull lever', and once she'd sat down, Elsa did just that. A succession of fruits rolled along the screen from top to bottom, and when it all cleared, new text was on the screen.

 **The Wayfaring of the Arctic Fox.**

Elsa gasped, and looked around, relieved to find the casino empty.

"What I have seen implies NaNoLand occupies a similar position in the timeline as Harry's defeat of Voldemort, no earlier than the late second millennium," she said, fingers drumming against her thigh. "Which means by this point, 'wayfaring' is an archaic term, and not commonly used. That there would not be other words more suited to the time is not something that makes sense... so this would seem to be a deliberate use—but _why_?" Elsa's eyes narrowed as she contemplated the 'why', and she read on.

An arctic fox follows your party up the Traditional 1,667 Ranges.  
 **BP:** The arctic fox seems to be following one member in particular.  
 **Double BP:** The arctic fox appears every time your party is ascending to the next peak.  
 **Triple BP:** The arctic fox is utterly incapable of following your party (perhaps due to methods of ascension)—and somehow still manages it.  
 **Quadruple BP:** The arctic fox is following along for a reason, which your party discovers.  
 **Cookies:** The reason that the arctic fox is following along advances your party up the mountain.

"I wish Mr. Ian Woon was here," Elsa said.

"But I am," Mr. Ian Woon said. He looked around the casino. "You decided to place a bet; that's always fun. Get anything good?"

"I have no way to judge if it is good," Elsa said. "Perhaps if you tell me about these bets, I would?"

"When you pull the lever, a random event is pulled from the collections," Mr. Ian Woon said. "If that event happens during your climb, you win the bet... not that you get much in the way of winnings, as the events are almost guaranteed to happen. However, almost all of the events have sub-events, and you will get more winnings should these sub-events happened. The less likely the sub-event is, the more winnings you receive should it occur."

Elsa recalled the amused look the arctic fox had given her when the green-eyed blonde was holding it. At the time, she'd thought it had been something imagined, though now she felt more certain it'd actually happened.

Mr. Ian Woon leaned forward, placing a finger on the screen, and the slot machine made several noises, printing a slip of paper. He handed Elsa the slip of paper, as well as a gold coin. "Take that up to the Keeper of the Final Bet, and she'll register your bet."

Elsa took both slip and coin up to the reception desk, and the Keeper of the Final Bet extended her hand without even looking up from her book. Elsa dropped both items into the outstretched hand, and the Keeper flicked the coin into a till, glancing at the slip.

"In order to claim winnings, please provide evidence of occurrences," the Keeper of the Final Bet said. "And... damn it all, I hate the ones that force me to bake cookies!"

"I promise I will not be offended if you do not bake me cookies," Elsa said.

"I told you: all results are binding—there will be no exchanges," the Keeper of the Final Bet said. "This is what you got; ergo, I'm now obligated to bake you cookies. I'll bake you salted caramel cookies; they're delicious." She scribbled something on the slip. "I need your name."

"Elsa."

"Full name, please?"

"Elsa Greengrass?"

The Keeper of the Final Bet snapped her head up. "Would you be interested in a side wager with me?"

"I guess that depends on the side wager," Elsa said.

The Keeper of the Final Bet smiled. "Nothing major, of course." She read through the slip once again. "What if we say the arctic fox is an angelus ex machina, if not a literal one?"

Elsa thought the terms over, and shrugged. The side wager appeared to follow what Mr. Ian Woon said about sub-event likelihood in being even less likely to occur than the cookies sub-event, and after some internal debate, she decided she didn't see any harm in agreeing. "Very well, I agree to those terms."

"Shake on it, then."

Elsa and the Keeper of the Final Bet shook hands, and the Keeper of the Final Bet went back to her book as if Elsa wasn't even there.

"Must be a good book," Elsa said, leaving the casino.

"It is!" the Keeper of the Final Bet said. "It's about two—"

As the doors closed, Elsa's attention was drawn to a small group near the stairs. The green-eyed blonde had three people with her, a little older than Elsa herself—two women and a man.

"It may _seem_ a little scary," the green-eyed blonde said, "but it's not so scary when you're used to things around here. I was scared my first year too, and look at me now. I'm mentoring newbies."

"Are you qualified to mentor newbies?" the man said.

"Probably not, no."

"But haven't you done this before?" one of the women said.

"Sure I have. This will be my thirteenth year, and fingers crossed, my thirteenth success. But that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. I'm not sure I ever really have, and yet, I keep conquering the challenge through hard work, and some dirty tricks. I really shouldn't be so proud of those dirty tricks, but... they saved me from defeat more than a few times. Ah, memories." She took stock of their looks. "Oh, don't look so scandalised. Dirty tricks are a tradition, and they're not illegal as such."

"But if you use dirty tricks to reach the end," the man said, "how can you say you've done the challenge?"

The green-eyed blonde shrugged. "Who cares how you win, as long as you win?"

"...can I steal that for a story I'm writing?" the other woman said. "I can just see Tracey Davis saying that."

"If you like, but be sure to credit Katherine Alice Applegate; she's who _I_ stole it from. In any case, this is where the casino is, and I believe you three wanted to go have a look inside?"

Stammering out thanks, the newbies dashed into the casino.

"Hard to believe I was a newbie once," the green-eyed blonde said, shaking her head. She glanced over at Elsa. "You have questions. Come with me."

* * *

Elsa figured they'd walked past at least a dozen doors before the green-eyed blonde opened one, ushering Elsa inside before coming in herself, the door snicking shut. The room they were in was a large lounge type one. A multitude of two person sofas were scattered around the room, and there was a full length bar running one of the shorter walls.

"What is this place?" Elsa said, looking around.

"One of the nineteen various lounges for people to gather in, although I think we'll have privacy enough for the moment," the green-eyed blonde said, walking over to the bar. She poured orange juice into a tall glass. "Do you want a drink?"

"I would rather have your name, since you think it so important to talk to me," Elsa said, choosing a pale blue sofa. She sank into the sofa, closing her eyes. It had the right balance of support and squish, and for a moment, Elsa luxuriated in the sheer comfortableness. When she heard heels tapping on the tiles, she looked up, expecting to see the green-eyed blonde. What she saw instead was a pale golden light suffusing the room, streaming through the windows.

"Just call me Liv." Liv dropped into the sofa beside Elsa, pulling her knees up to her chest. "You might as well start asking your questions, and we'll see what I can answer." When no response came, Liv tilted her head to one side, looking at Elsa with a thoughtful expression. "I didn't expect you to be shy."

Elsa raised a hand, pointing to the windows. The golden light had increased in strength, approaching a honey-like colour, which threw the colours of the room off. Liv bounced up, hurrying over to the windows. She opened one, sticking her head and one hand out, and her hair streamed out. For a moment, a glowing ring appeared above Liv's head, and she turned back to Elsa, smiling.

"It's a halospree," she said, giggling at Elsa's confused look. Liv unfastened a bracelet with seven charms attached, tossing it over to Elsa. "See the charms? They're tokens you get when you obtain a halo. You don't need more than one token per challenge attempt, although it's possible to end up with multiples." Liv walked over to the bar, rummaging around.

Elsa turned the bracelet over in her hand. The tokens were silver discs, stamped with two digits, dangling from a silver chain. The craftsmanship was solid, if simple, but no less elegant for all that.

Liv came back to the sofa, drawing her knees back up to her chest once she'd sat down. She held out a silver necklace, a snowflake shaped token attached. "A halospree happens when individuals accumulate too many tokens during the challenge. They go around, find people who don't have that specific token, and boom: more people have halos." Liv smiled, nodding at the necklace. "Go on, take it. I snagged it for you."

Elsa looked out at the window; the golden glow was fading in sputtering fits, leaving only the sunless light of NaNoLand behind. "Do they always end so quickly?"

"Sometimes they continue in a rolling wave... seeing someone else go on a halospree inspires others to do halosprees, but otherwise, yes. A halospree is very much 'blink and you'll miss it'." Liv shook her head. "If you don't want this, I'm going to have to go on a halospree myself."

"Can you put it on for me?" Elsa said, and she lifted her hair up. Liv moved behind her, and a couple of deft manoeuvres later, the snowflake rested under Elsa's t-shirt. A halo shimmered above Elsa's head for a moment, and then it faded. Liv sat back down, trying to suppress a grin, and utterly failing.

"You look amused," Elsa said.

Liv's grin widened, before she ducked her head. "Ah, it's nothing. A private joke, that's all," she said. She glanced at her watch, and tapped it, frowning. "...and I believe if you're going to ask me any questions, it'd best be soon."

"I believe you and Mr. Ian Woon have answered what questions I had since my arrival," Elsa said, "bar one, which I doubt anyone here can answer: why I was brought to NaNoLand."

"That's your question?" Liv said, sitting up.

Elsa nodded, and Liv giggled.

"Oh, I can answer that," she said, doubling over as she giggled harder. "It was amusing—so very amusing."

Elsa stiffened, her eyes never leaving Liv. "Do you—do you know who I am?"

Without warning, Liv sobered, sitting up. She fixed Elsa with a blank gaze. "Elsa of Arendelle, Queen Elsa of Norway, Rey Erso, Lady Heiress Greengrass, Marta Pruinaen, Bringer of the Frost, the Winter Wayfarer."

Elsa stared at her.

Liv smiled, her eyes filled with laughter. "You have _way_ too many titles."

"Are—are you responsible for my rise as the Winter Wayfarer?"

Liv was silent for a moment, and at last she shook her head. "I am aware of who is, but it is not for you to know. Not yet." She stood up, her heels clicking on the tiles as she walked to the exit, and in an almost too perfect prescient motion, she turned around just after opening the door—which was right when Elsa swallowed hard. Liv held a finger up.

"A suggestion for you," Liv said. "You might consider carrying around stones to use as anchors for temporary wards. Could be there's places you've visited where you might've not wanted to be so visible, at least at first?" When Elsa nodded, Liv smiled. "I thought so. It's something for you to think about, anyhow."

"Will I ever see Anna again?"

Liv closed her eyes, and just when Elsa thought there would be no answer, Liv gave her the barest nod.

"Who are you?"

A regretful look crossed Liv's face, and she pointed at the ice and snow wreathing around Elsa, before she let the door close behind her. A crack of ice sounded seconds later, and Liv sighed, her eyes glowing with a preternatural light.

"By Sága's leave, I drink from gold cups of the waves of Sökkvabekkr; I see where you were, where you are, and where you will be. Thus Vár herself tasked me with recording your tales."

* * *

What follows is a perhaps not comprehensive list of every NaNoWriMo reference contained in this chapter. Credit goes to Wikiwrimo, from whom I sourced some explanations.

 **A row of digital clocks hung in the air:** Traditionally, everyone starts at 12:00:01 AM November 1st, local time.

 **An odd sense of waiting; the tsunami:** During September/October, participants await (impatiently) the annual forum wipe where the prior year's threads are removed, and theoretically archived.

 **"Arendal is currently ineligible to ascend; do you wish to proceed?"** By the rules, you shouldn't write anything prior to November—but you are allowed to declare oneself a Rebel, and start before November.

 **Mr. Ian Woon:** Mr. Ian Woon is an anagram of 'NaNoWriMo'. Given Mr. Ian Woon appears to have been a familiar term by 2003, it's probable he originated before that season. His appearance in this chapter is based on the Mr. Ian Woon 2012 Summer Fundraising Drive Trading Card (because obviously, no two Mr. Ian Woons look alike).

 **One word versus multiple words:** More words are better than less words during a month where you're trying to write fifty thousand words. Hence, Mr. Ian Woon rather than Ian.

 **Viking warships:** The Viking helmet has been a NaNoWriMo symbol since the tenth year—2008.

 **Post-Wipe Bay:** Refers to the annual wipe.

 **A fellow called Baty:** To paraphrase No Plot? No Problem, in 1999, Chris Baty decided he really needed to write a novel in a month, somehow convinced twenty other people to join him in doing it, and thus, NaNoWriMo was born. (This was not because he had any great ideas for a book—he in fact had no ideas for a book. Apparently this all made sense in 1999.)

 **His nineteenth year doing it:** This chapter was written during November 2017, NaNoWriMo's nineteenth year. I reference more nineteens later.

 **The thirty-one peaks of the Traditional 1,667 Ranges:** The first NaNoWriMo was held in July before being moved to November in 2000 to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather. Hence, thirty-one peaks for July. The name refers to how originally, word counts were set at 1,667 as the minimum for each day of November before a new standard came in: 5,000 words every three days.

 **Overachievers' Peak:** Some participants don't stop at 50,000 words... or even at one novel.

 **Reference Desk:** One of the many forums of NaNoWriMo, it's where questions we don't know the answers to are answered by other people.

 **"How does anyone keep the geography of this place straight?":** It quickly becomes nearly impossible to find anything on the forums unless you've bookmarked it somehow.

 **A large barn-like structure:** The Adoption Society forum, where lines, characters, plots, titles, you name it, are offered up for use in novels. And who hasn't heard of plot bunnies?

 **Invisible flying guilt monkeys:** Guilt Monkeys were featured as denizens of NaNoLand in the official 2010 NaNoWriMo artwork.

 **Sporks!** The Spork Thread was begun in 2005, and is well known as a place to come and vent to sympathetic ears. *waves her spork!*

 **One Of Us:** Look, it's the OverAchievers' (not a) cult.

 **Sushi-roll t-shirt woman:** sushimustwrite on Twitter.

 **All Elsa could see was darkness so complete...:** I don't believe the site has had a crash in the last few years or so, but there was a time where we'd get at least one crash every year because too many people were on the site.

 **Persimmon Grove:** In 2004, the term NaNoism emerged to refer to an error in a NaNoWriMo novel that was funny or awkward. A Miri Mirror compiled many of the NaNoisms shared in 2005 into a book called 'I Hate Myself and Want to Die'—but not before getting permission. Except that it seems no one could type 'permission' correctly, and so ended up granting 'permapersimmons'. I of course obtained permapersimmons from AernJardos and snowbug to include their NaNoisms in here.

 **Captain Obvious:** The Captain Obvious explanation offered by Mr. Ian Woon is made up of the various categories and their descriptions used by Miri Mirror in IHMAWTD.

 **The Travelling Shovel of Death:** A yangnome apparently created a Shovel of Death in 2005 by complete accident, and because of course he did, he shared it with the forums. From there, the SoD appears to have gained sentience, as well as the ability to travel between dimensions/stories, for it always appears to be the _same_ shovel committing these murders. There's a reason I had it land where it did. ;-)

 **Viewing Platform Snack Shop:** I believe this is mentioned in No Plot? No Problem!

 **The fair stalls:** The NaNo Artisans forum.

 **The beautiful, but generic map:** Every year, people adorn their computer desktops with calendars showing the minimum word count total for each day, which may be tailored to their specific goal.

 **You make the map as you go:** Pantsing!

 **Aerial photograph:** Plotting!

 **Aerial photograph** ** _and_** **make the map as you go:** Plantsing.

 **A floating arm trebuchet:** In 2006, a LustForLike posted to the forums that 'a trebuchet is an overlooked thing that improves a novel', and so began the Trebuchet Club.

 **Post-Climb Clinic:** The forums have a "I Wrote a Novel, Now What?" section which includes a Novel Draft Aftercare forum.

 **Banhammer:** The staff have to ban spam bots, and even sometimes trolls from the forums/site.

 **Coffee shop:** All-Ages Coffeehouse forum.

 **Café:** Character Café forum.

 **Viking shield:** The NaNoWriMo logo. Slightly altered here because I believe the pens should be with the papers, for the Handwriting Brigade.

 **Mimi and Tim:** A Debbie Ridpath-Ohi created a song called Mimi's NaNoWriMo Pep Song; it appeared in the WrimoRadio podcast (Episode 3, 2007). The lyrics used to be on Debbie's site, InkyGirl.

 **The Casino:** Every year, there are dares that you may, at your whim, attempt to include in your novel. The dare/bet I used in story is an old one, originally featuring a cat, where the cat would appear every chapter, even if there was no way it could have got to where the characters are, usually following one character in particular...

 **Mentoring newbies:** Each year, newbies can be taken under the wing of an experienced NaNoer.

 **Nineteen various lounges:** The genre lounges. If anyone cares, Liv and Elsa ended up in the Erotic Fiction lounge.

 **Halospree:** Donations of ten USD or more come with a halo to adorn your profile pic. One must specify the username of the intended recipient, and as such, it's relatively easy to donate donate halos to those who haven't got one.


End file.
